Many of the Americans I’ve met who’ve never traveled outside the 50 States are so gullible that they believe the French are — as the Simpson animated TV show once said — ‘Cheese-Eating, Surrender Monkeys‘. But the time I’ve spent climbing with French guides in the Alps or watching French extreme skiers descend those peaks has led me to admire how courageous they can be. Sometimes crazily so!

Above is an example, a short video that won the ADVENTURA award for best short extreme film at the international adventure film festival of Montreal last year. The 3-minute 15-second clip, shot from his helmet camera, shows François Bon’s 5,000-foot ‘speedflying’ (skiing with a parachute) descent from the summit of the Eiger on June 16, 2006.