Flying a $10,000 FPV Drone Over the Matterhorn

This is the Matterhorn, the most iconic but also the deadliest mountain in the world. Over 500 people have died trying to ascend it. That's why I let my drones do the job for me. But this mountain is so high that even reaching our vantage point, the Hörnli hut, turned out to be a challenge. It's early spring, there's still a lot of snow on the track and the hut is still closed. We do this whole project for a Swiss commercial and that's also why I'm probably the first person ever to fly an FPV cine lifter with a cinema camera worth over $10,000 over the Matterhorn. We are prepping here the day before. Tomorrow we're going up there. All the way, no not all the way, but we're going up to the Hörnli hut. There might still be some snow up there and for that we need some crampons. So yeah, we're just prepping for that. We have two drones for tomorrow. We did some testing today already. This is one of them, the 5-inch. We're flying with the GoPro 12 and then we have the big boy. That's an 8-inch X8 with the red Komodo on it. The air might be a little bit thin up there so I will see how the drone will behave and also for the battery life. We have some lions as well for this one, but with this one we fly with 5.2 000 mAh batteries, some LiPos. Super excited, good weather and yeah, look at this beauty out there. Super sick. Today is the day. Kevin is prepping the camera. Kevin by the way, he's a good friend of mine and he's the spotter and AC for this project. We woke up at 5am this morning because we needed a shot of the first light on the Matterhorn. First shot of the day. The sun is coming in nice on top of the Matterhorn. Yeah, it's beautiful. I think it's as well the framing. Framing is exactly what we need from the storyboard. We're getting some shots for a commercial. That's the reason why we're here as well, but we thought we'd just give you as well an insight on how we work here and we'll take you all the way up there later on. After a short stop at our hotel where we charged all the batteries, it was time for the big mission. And up we go. At this point, I should have rather checked the timetable of the gondola instead of looking out the window, but more about that later. With the help of the gondola, the first thousand meters went quite easily. All right, we're now here on the Schwarze and that's where the Irish guys started. Shout out to those guys and they flew all the way from here up there to the Matterhorn. But yeah, they had long range quads and lion batteries and we have this big bad boy. That's why we'll walk all the way up there to the Hurley Hut. Let's do it. At 9.38 we started our hike and the start was quite easy because the snow was still very hard in the morning and at this altitude the trail was sometimes even snow free. After a while, we could definitely feel our backpacks though. We both had over 25 kilograms of camera equipment and drone batteries and also spare parts. We're getting closer to the Hurley Hut and you can see here the Hurley Grat and we're going all the way up there. There's a helicopter right now. It's right there. That's the goal. So not too far. At this time of year, there's not much going on on the Matterhorn. We didn't meet any other people on the way up. The only movement around us was the steady hum of helicopters circling the mountain full of tourists. Sick. We have pretty much half of the altitude meters but it's still that way to go. Snow is not perfect now. We could have started a little bit earlier because the snow is getting a little soft. But for the shadow on the Matterhorn, we have to be up there at two to three. That's when the Matterhorn looks at its best. So let's go. We are now at about 3000 meters above sea level and slowly we can feel the altitude. Also, the snow gets deeper and deeper the higher we go and every step just gets a little harder. We are here now on the Hurley Grat and there's quite a few helicopters going around here. And that's why it's very important to get all the permits. We got all the permits from Air Thermat because we're filming as well for their commercial. So yeah, always get the permits. The last 200 meters to the hut are the steepest and also technical hardest. That's why we decided to put on the crampons for this last section. It's definitely more gnarly territory here. For me the hardest I did yet. But we're gonna make it I guess. Step by step. Step by step, slowly. We still have enough time planned. We didn't rush on those last meters. It's already past midday and the solar radiation warmed up the significantly. We could even spot some wet snow avalanches on the east side of the Matterhorn. Unfortunately Kevin had to stop just short of the Hurley hut. There was one last sketchy bit of climbing he didn't feel comfortable with. Since he could still spot me from there he didn't need to come all the way up. We repacked all the gear into my backpack and I tackled the last uphill. I finally made it up to the Hurley hut. Here's the Matterhorn and the drones are ready for takeoff. Here the five inch and the Xenolifter. Probably the first Xenolifter that's gonna make it all the way to the Matterhorn. Yeah I'm excited to send it. Before every flight we had to get permission from Air Zermatt. Kevin was handling all the logistics and I had him on the phone the whole time. Easy, wish me luck. On my test flight I didn't want to reach the summit. I just wanted to see how the drone reacts in those special conditions. I did my first test flight and now we have a time frame of 50 minutes where we can fly and there's no helicopters. I felt pretty good at the test flight so now relax and sit back because the next 50 minutes I went full send. I was really happy how all the flights turned out but now we had to get down the mountain as quick as possible because the last gondola went at half past five or at least we thought it would We are already on our way down. We got all the shots and also some of the props of the Xenolifter here just exploded because I had to do a quick landing on my last flight because I really pushed the battery of the Xenolifter so I came in really hot and I had to land as quick as Yes we are still walking, still walking. We walked all the way down from up there because we missed the last gondola which was very unfortunate but at least we had a nice view and we still had some light up until now. Anyways it was a good day we got a lot of good shots and that's all that counts. All right thanks guys and see you in the next one