It is a deadly and thrilling passion.
Diving off cliff faces, Ellen Brennan has become a pioneer of wingsuit BASE jumping.
And Nick Glass traveled to her home in the French Alps for this week's Art of Movement.
Right before you get to the edge of the cliff, you've worked yourself up. You've got these nerves going. You're breathing hard, and then you walk down to the edge.
You have to calm down. You have to slow down your heart rate. You have to breathe deep.
And once you realize that you're in a good physical and mental spot, you squat down, you lean over and then you push.
Three, two, one, see ya.
Meet Ellen Brennan, the fastest woman in the skies
and a pioneer -- one of just a handful -- in the relatively new sport of wingsuit BASE jumping.
The idea is to launch off a vertical cliff, wearing nothing but a wing jumpsuit and a parachute.
Today, Ellen is flying, soaring over snow and glaciers in the French Alps.
She's made Chamonix and the valley below her home and help[ed] make it a playground for a new generation of birdmen.
At 26, Ellen is highly experienced. She's made 600 wingsuit jumps.
But today is a little different.
Just below the spike of Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain, a granite spike, the Aiguille du Midi,
if she completes a jump from here, a flight of some 3,000 meters, it'll be her longest to date.
It's scary, especially at Aiguille du Midi right now.
It's new, not many people have jumped it.
You have to rappel down to a little rock that's not comfortable to stand on.
You squat down, you lean over, and then once you've almost reach[ed] the point of no return, then you push.
And at that moment, everything is calm for just that moment. Everything's moving in slo-mo.
You feel the pressure starting to go into your arm wings.
You start to see the sides of the walls come up faster and faster, and you're in this mindset of just acceptance.
And then within three seconds, sometimes even shorter, your suit has inflated and you're officially flying away from the cliff.
And those are the most vital three seconds of any jump. Like, that's where you make or break it.
Three, two, one, and go.
Everyone recognizes that this sport is as dangerous as it is thrilling.
Only the most experienced skydivers can take up the challenge.
At speeds of up to 200 kilometers an hour, the biggest kick comes from flying close to the ground, but it's also a bigger risk.
Do you know how many people have died?
Some of the calculations we've done, we want to say maybe 1 in 10.
One in 10?
I hope it's not like that, but I'd have to say that I've had quite a few friends die doing this.
Having flown for one minute and 22 seconds, her longest-ever flight, she pulls her parachute and floats gently down.
When I was a kid, I never believed I would be able to fly down a mountain, and now we're doing it all the time, daily.
Like, it doesn't get any better than that. Like, I'm living my little-kid dream.