Have you ever wanted to lift up, up, and away in a house carried by balloons, à la the classic Disney/Pixar film Up? All you need to do is fill 100 balloons with helium over the course of two days, then strap yourself into a camping chair and let it happen. Or at least, that’s what British adventurer Tom Morgan did:
Morgan isn’t just “some dude” with a passion for Up; he owns an adventuring company called the Adventurists (naturally), and had tried to pull off this flight of fancy several times.
After moving the venue to South Africa from Botswana, he finally achieved an altitude of about 8,000 feet — a little more than a mile and a half up.
While Morgan describes the experience as “unbelievably cool,” when it came time for him to come back down, “I had to keep my cool and start gradually cutting the balloons.”
Next up? Morgan plans to put together a “competitive helium balloon race” somewhere on the continent, presumably for the weather conditions. (Though one imagines the legal preparations for this proposed, precarious sport will be a headache no matter where it lands.)
