I will be more than honest with you, I have never even heard of free climbing trees until I saw this video. I guess it makes sense though, and the views aren’t too shabby. The man in the video (which was done by Red Bull) is Chris Sharma and he climbs a ridiculously large Redwood tree with just his body. The best part is that it is for a great cause.

In a quest to return to his climbing roots and to advance the understanding of California’s giant Coast Redwoods, Chris Sharma recently embarked on an unprecedented free climb in a Northern California forest glade. Using only his hands and feet and protected from falls by a rope and harness, Sharma collected valuable data from a soaring Redwood, located in a city park in Eureka, to measure tree water status as an indicator of how it has been affected by the current severe drought. Red Bull worked closely with two UC Berkeley Tree Biologists in preparing for and executing this project.

Color us impressed.