Longline

Winter is over and I have the bruises to prove it. I've been introduced to a guy who is an expert slackliner, and he set up a 315 foot line in the park last week! I've been slacklining for about 6 years, and I have trouble on anything more that about 50 feet. When you stretch your webbing out as long as a football field, the dynamics completely change. The wind whips it around and every disturbance or shift in balance causes aftershocks that reverberate half a dozen times.


The setup for a line of this scale requires industrial devices that can handle the thousands of pounds of tension which are needed to keep the line taught enough. Too loose and you'll touch the ground in the middle. Luckily for us, the park had a gentle bowl shape to keep us high enough. With six pulleys, a handful of steel carabiners, rigging plates and heavy-duty slings, we set up a 15:1 mechanical advantage that allowed the three of us to easily stretch the system to the right degree of twang.

Josh, the owner of the gear was the only one of us who cold get more than about 15 feet on it. Meanwhile Trevor and I practiced on a 100 foot line nearby. Normally a 100 foot line looks dauntingly huge, but with the 315 footer in the background, it seemed laughably puny.

Here are some photos of the fun.