Ascend the DOM in jQuery with succinct notation

ascendDOMLevels.js

/*

I found myself needing to traverse the DOM tree upward more than just a few levels in a recent project (mostly due to heavy element nesting). 

This function takes two arguments: the element in question and the number of levels to ascend. 
Finally, it returns the element that's n levels above the initial element.

Ex: $(this).parent().parent().parent().parent().parent() could be more concisely expressed as ascendDOMLevels($(this), 5).

*/

// Iterative version
function ascendDOMLevels( element, numOfLevels ) {

  for (var i=0; i<numOfLevels; i++) {
    var element = element.parent();
  }

  return element;
}

// Recursive version
function ascendDOMLevels_recur( element, numOfLevels ) {

  if (numOfLevels === 0) {
    return element;
  } else { 
    var element = element.parent();
    return ascendDOMLevels_recur( element, numOfLevels-1 );
  }

}