Is this the scariest commute in the world?

The inhabitants of a mountaintop village have to use a rickety old cable car to get in and out of their home in China.

The cable car carries everything from people to supplies across a one-kilometre distance.

It saves the villagers a day of travelling it would take on foot to leave their village through a narrow and dangerous path.

People have been living in the village of Yushan in Hefeng county, in China's Hubei province for hundreds of years for its fertile soil and protective location.

As the need for schooling and modern equipment got greater, a local suggested building a cable car.

According to the Mirror, village elder Xiong Sun, 79, said: "Our lift of which we are enormously proud and which has been running without problems for almost two decades means that life can go on as it would in any normal village despite the fact that Yushan is located where normally only eagles would be prepared to make their homes."

The villagers bought a second-hand cable from a ski resort in Europe and connected it to their homemade cable car.

Pic shows: Villagers use this cable car which now carries everything from supplies through to people across over the one kilometre distance on a daily basis. It may look like they are dicing with death but this cable car is actually a lifeline for Chinese villagers who say that without it it would add an extra day to their journey every time they left their mountaintop village. People have been living in the village of Yushan in Hefeng county, in China's Hubei province, for hundreds of years, able to exploit the fertile soil and the safety provided from their mountaintop location. They rarely needed to access the outside world for anything other than buying tools or other supplies, and kept themselves to themselves. But that changed with the arrival of the modern world where children were told they had to go to school, and all sorts of material items needed to become part of village life including televisions and mobile phones through to computers, and the fact that some people simply wanted to work in jobs outside the village. But with a day needed to trek down into the valley and up the other side over a narrow and dangerous pathway, it seemed as if the village's future was doomed, until a local inspired by Alpine cable cars came up with the idea of building their own. They managed to buy second-hand cable from a ski resort in Europe and connected it to their home-made cable car which now carries everything from supplies through to people across over the one kilometre distance on a daily basis. The journey takes just a few minutes, as opposed to a day, meaning the kids can get to school and people can get to work. Village elder Xiong Sun, 79, said:

The pair of thick cables are strung between two high cliff faces with a steel cage suspended below to carry people and goods in and out of the village.

Yushan village has a population of just over 200 people and the only access to the outside world is via this 'sky road'.

The ropeway was built in 1997, and is powered by a diesel engine.

It is 1,000 meters long and 400 meters above the valley floor. Zhang Xinjian has been maintaining the ropeway for the past 15 years. He told Rex Features: "I started to work at this spot since the rope was set up. No one would take the job."