Highline Between Vanoise Express Cable Cars: Paradiski Gravity 2013

On 16 December 2013, French highliners Julien Millot and Tancrède Melet walked a 60-metre line strung between the two cabins of the Vanoise Express, hanging 380 m above the valley between La Plagne and Les Arcs. The stunt, called Paradiski Gravity, marked ten years of the Paradiski ski area.

Paradiski Gravity: the highline between two cable cars

The line was suspended between the two cabins of the Vanoise Express, which the J2Ski report called the world’s biggest cable car. The mainline was just 2.5 cm wide and 60 m long, with 380 m of air beneath it. The organisers billed it as a world first in highlining.

A highline is a slackline rigged high above the ground, and this one was walked by two specialists of the discipline. The event was timed to the tenth anniversary of Paradiski, which was created on 20 December 2003, and for the occasion the fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac gave the cable car a new look.

Julien Millot and Tancrède Melet

Millot and Melet were long-time partners in outdoor sports who started with slacklining and moved on to highlining. Melet, born in 1983, worked as an engineer for four years before leaving in 2008 to pursue outdoor sports full-time. He later moved into performance, calling himself an “artist of the void”, and co-founded the Flying Frenchies, a group of artists, athletes and engineers known for combining circus skills with BASE jumping.

Melet died on 5 January 2016 in Aurel, in the Drôme, while preparing a show, when a hot-air balloon dragged him into the air during take-off and he fell.

The Vanoise Express cable car

The Vanoise Express opened in December 2003 to link La Plagne and Les Arcs in the French Alps, creating the Paradiski area. Its numbers explain why it made such a dramatic stage:

• Span: 1,800 m with no supporting pylons.
• Height: 380 m above the valley floor.
• Cabins: two double-decker cabins, each carrying more than 200 people, able to run independently with their own spare engines.
• Crossing time: about four minutes; moving between the two ski areas takes seven to ten.
• Cost: more than €15 million, built by Poma for the Compagnie des Alpes.

The lift is the hinge of Paradiski: when it was closed for the whole 2007–08 season after safety inspections, the linked ski area was effectively split in two. It reopened for 2008–09.

Riding the Vanoise Express

Ordinary passengers get a version of the same view from inside the cabin, 380 m above the valley, on the four-minute crossing. Because the lift joins the two resorts, skiers on a Paradiski pass can ski both sides in a single day. Check the resorts’ websites for current lift passes and opening dates before you go.

Explore more: a public viewpoint at Aiguille du Midi; another film about movement in exposed spaces.

Related reading: Ski-Gliding the Eiger With Bon and Montant.

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