Street Trials Cyclist Danny MacAskill's Epecuen Video





Street Trials Cyclist Danny MacAskill's Epecuen Video


Watch MacAskill bring a forgotten city back to life in his latest trials riding video, Epecuén.

Scottish trials rider Danny MacAskill, known for epic projects such as Way Back Home andImaginate, traveled to Argentina for his latest video, a one-of-a-kind riding experience in the forgotten city of Epecuén.

Epecuén, around 350 miles southwest of Buenos Aires, was a tourist town on the edge of Lake Epecuén. At its peak in the 1970s, Epecuén had a population of around 5,000. Then, in 1985, a dam gave way, and water slowly submerged the town, whose residents evacuated.

By 1993, according to The Atlantic, the entire town was under more than 30 feet of water.

Then in 2009, the water began receding, revealing a town in ruins. By 2011, Epecuén had entirely reappeared, as a haunting expanse of destruction, rusted rebar, crumbling concrete, and bare white trees.

In his extraordinary new video 'Epecuén,' MacAskill investigates this surreal ghost town as only he can -- jumping from rooftop to dilapidated rooftop; exploring the empty streets, vacant buildings, playground and theater; and even meeting the town's sole resident, Pablo Novak, who returned to Epecuén 25 years after it flooded.

In an exclusive Google+ Hangout on Tuesday, MacAskill said he found Epecuén a couple of years ago on a "lost cities" blog. "As soon as I saw it, I had to go there and film," he said. "I kind of wanted to be the first person to get there."

When asked what the vibe was like, filming in such an eerie environment, MacAskill explained, "It was a real feeling of awe. When you first ride down the main street, you can't quite believe what you're seeing... It's all white and just devastation as far as the eye can see."

The fragile state of the landscape also lent a particularly sketchiness to the video production.

"Some of the roofs that we were on top of," MacAskill said, "you had to be very careful to make sure you were walking along the internal walls because if you stood in the middle, it would definitely collapse."

More: Visit the official Epecuén site.