Highline : Oh yeah!

Christian started. It was absolutly sure about his success. He already crossed several time such gap. He is smooth and relax. No fear, no panic just concentration.
First attempt, first sucess.

He also took a return ticket. This side is more dangerous because the cliff's edges are sharp and not so much below. I also tried and I worked it out! Of course, I did not go right away. I had to take several deep breaths and struggle a bit with my mind. After 10 minutes of self discussion, I made the first step. The feeling is incredible, it is so unatural. Your body doesn't like it at first but then when you start to cool down and take control again, it's damn good! Exhilarating! 

Highline is gonna rock!

David is playing the rabbit slacker.

Tyrid is testing the line. David is taping the security line onto the slackline. 

Various riding style and a fairy tale's roof

The goofy rider himself!
Paula and her Jolly jumper.
Incredible house lost in the mountain. We had a small but marvellous lunch outside. 

Norway: what an awesome country!

I just came back for one my greatest holidays - business trip ever. Thanks to Mitch, Julien, Christian, Tridy and the rafting crew of the Schoa Rafting. We arrived at the train station of Oslo after a long travel. In fact, Ryanair is cheap but it mades the journey longer (nearly 16 hours from Heidelberg-germany to Oslo-norway)...
We took the train to Otta. This city welcomes all the wild water addicted since its river Schoa is perfect to ride!
Mitch and Julien (both french) are working as rafting guide on the river. They live just by the river. Their camp smells a mix in between drying neoprene wets suits, dogs and beers! After some wild raft, we headed to the mountains. No one up there. The feeling is thrilling!
Few days later, Christian welcomed us in Oslo. He managed a great week-end - Horse riding, highlining, partying, hiking, swimming - Thanks a lot! 

Long Slack - highline training -

Ok, now on I am seriously training for my next highline. I rigged a long slack exactly as a highline. At the anchor point there is 2.50 metres of height. The slack measures 28 metres and the whole lenght, in between the anchors points, is 30 metres. I start to be confident on it but my moves are not fluent. The sag is still big.

New Slack collection

Ojala a lot of good news in the small slackline's world. First of them my new collection is producing and the first samples make me proud of it. The quality is definetely there. We reached a new level of finition. Stitches are great!
Soon I will send them at the APACE EC test center in order to get a fully report of their Minimum Break Resistency. They should overpass the average standard.
This endless sling is one of my favourite. Thanks for all my friend whom helped me to choose the right colour! 

Barbarian Slack Style

What about this picture? Is it not a wonderful mix in between viking and urban culture with a glimpse of slacker style? Few days ago I posted a picture from "Da Slack Team" which in one way is not so far from this one! 

Highline training

For the next month, I have planned to practice a lot my longline. I taped a rope below in order to get the same feeling as a highline. It also helps me to get a deeper knowledge of the rigging.
I believe that soon enough Charles would try too ;-)

 

A meeting in Norway

Tonight right after my highline training at the park, I had a call from Mitch. A Very Famous Menmber of da Slack Team (here above). He is the one whose is menacing me with his knife. Of course is not like this on the real life, he looks more as below:
I am very glad to visite him and Slakkline.no with Paula. It's gonna rock! Currently, he is a rafting guide on the Schoa River. That's sound good to me. 

Highline attempt - Rigging

Rigging a highline is an Art. There are so few publications on this topic. Every highliner seems to get is own rigging style. Briefly we headed to this one: one webbing and safety rope with the rigging system out of the way Three anchorages points at each side (one for the webbing, one for the safety rope, one for a backup). Thanks to Cyril without whom this rigging would not had been possible.
He checked, cleaned and drilled the anchorages points and then helped me to pass the webbing, as the rope, from one side to another.
Once the line was properly taped and tighted, one of us had to try its security. We had to jump under..Fear was pounding my heart off. Hopefully, Cyril decided to do it first. Thumbs up! You're da man! His jump was scary.
Now, I had to do mine...The time stopped and I was safe under the line.
Soon after I tried to cross the line. 4 attemps headed me into the middle. I was not able to cross it all for one main reason: the security rope, which is taped onto the webbing add a lot of reverb to the webbing. I will finaly tune the whole set up in Strasbourg and next attempt will be the one!

Highline attempt - Overview -

Here we are (from left to right: Fab, I and Benoua) on the brige from which a highline will be rigged. The weather is not sunny nevertheless we are enthousiastic. We checked the spot and found out that the rock was too rotten. Fortunately we found another spot by near.
The bridge lenght is 22 meters. According to our measure, the highline should be 26 meters.
The view above shows the all atmosphere. It's deep, noisy and uncrowded.
55 meters of heigh above a tiny river. Everything seems quite small, isn'it. 

Let's Highline!

Ok. We are heading from Strasbourg to Annecy in less than half a hour. I have been contacting the whole crew during two days in row, checking the weather and thinking out the way to do it properly.
Now on, my mind is clear but i have still a remaining fear. Don't know why! Anyway I like this feeling.
Looking forward to see my feet above 70 meters...