Watch Athletes Ski a Mountain at Night—Using Only Flares for Light

Many resorts around the country offer skiing after dark with marked trails that are well-lit. But there are some skilled thrill-seekers who opt for a more adventurous take on night skiing. In the short film above titled Torched, Nicolas Vuignier and Jules Guarneri follow a crew of freeskiers and snowboarders as they travel down a mountain filled with obstacles, using only rescue flares to light their way.

"At first they didn’t really get it,” Vuignier told GrindTV about asking the winter athletes to be in the film. “They did not understand the concept, but when I showed them some of the first test shots, most of them wanted to try it!”

After a few trial runs during the day, the group, including skiers Greg Tuscher and Alex Neurohr, pro Sammy Carlson, and snowboarder Mathieu Schaer, strapped on their gear and hit the slopes in the Valais region of Switzerland. The flares, which were attached to their snow gear using duct tape, only provided a small amount of light, making the already tricky descent even more difficult. A behind-the-scenes video posted to YouTube shows just how much trial and error went into getting the footage for the short film, including solving the issue of flares burning holes into the skiers' pants during jumps.

[h/t: Gizmodo]