This is a whole new level of stomach-lurching.
Urban daredevils Vadim Makhorov and Vitaly Raskalov recently released a video of their illegal ascent up Shanghai Tower, which will be the second-tallest building in the world when it's completed. In black hoodies and face masks, the Russian duo breaks in to a construction site and scales the 2,073-foot tower -- and then its 59-foot construction crane -- in darkness and fog, with no semblance of a safety harness.
Their footage (shot on GoPro cameras) will throw your gut for a loop. Catch our climbers inching their feet onto the veeery edge of the tower at 1:43, and hoisting themselves up the crane poles, jungle-gym style, at 2:05. The Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower -- some of Shanghai's tallest skyscrapers -- look like toys peeking out of the cloud blanket far below.
And if you're easily nauseated, we DARE you to watch the camera peer down the crane shaft at 3:10. EEK.
Shanghai tower. 650 meters from ontheroofs on Vimeo.
You may remember Raskalov as the guy who climbed the Great Pyramid of Giza last year. He was also once detained by police for scaling a Russian bridge.
The Shanghai Tower has been under construction since 2008. When it's done, it'll be (by most accounts) second in tallness only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
...let's just hope Raskalov doesn't try to climb that one next.