Climbing The Eiffel Tower -- Amazing POV Footage Of Freeclimber James Kingston

Most of us, if we go to Paris, might visit the Eiffel Tower and head to the top using the lift. Not so British freeclimber James Kingston who decided to live out a dream of his by climbing the 980 ft metal tower.

Kingston, who's previously scaled the Dnipro Towers in Ukraine, abandoned ski lifts, and many other dizzying heights in his POV Adventures series, has had a lifelong goal of wanting to climb the iconic French landmark.

I guess it beats waiting for hours at each level in the huge queues.

The video starts with Kingston peering over the side of the tower at night, later showing him near the top after the sun has risen in the morning. It's terrifying just watching him clamber about the steel structure, so he must have nerves and balls of steel to undertake such a thing.

As for how he did it. He writes that, initially, he'd planned to buy a ticket for the second viewing platform and climb out a stairway. But he had to rethink this as it was just too busy. So instead he decided to scale it from the ground up.

"We started the climb at 1AM narrowly avoiding the patrolling security (which seemed more like the French army as they were in full camo and had massive guns)," he writes. "And wormed our way through what seemed like endless CCTV cameras. Once we reached about 20 meters up the side of the tower it appeared we'd made it through what would normally be the riskiest part of any climb. As far as I could tell, the tower was ours for the night. After slowly making our way up through the framework of the Tower, we finally reached the top platform which was fully lit up."

After having to hide from security for a good few hours, and clambering about a bit more once they'd gone, he was met at the bottom by them—and so ended his climb.

"We were handcuffed and taken to the local police station where we were held and questioned for around 6 hours before being released without charges (I also had to promise them I wouldn't climb it again for 3 years). I can now officially tick the Eiffel Tower off my list."

As reckless as the climb obviously was, not a lot of people can say that.