Last weekend I used a window of opportunity to finish off an old project of mine. An unlikely good weather situation was predicted so I motivated
Dani Haberl and the
slackline.at crew to go "hiking".
We packed our bags with a heavy 100m polyester highline setup and lots of steel gear to make our "hiking" trip even more enjoyable. It took us a little less than an hour up a steep trail to get to the spot we aimed for: The best highlinespot near Graz where a
53m and a
77m highline can be rigged, about 60 to 80m high. Both lines are anchored in the last pitch of a popular 7 pitch alpine climbing route - which gives you a good idea of the exposure we are talking about. When I first lasered these lines a few years ago I had sweaty hands. The thought of putting up an 80m highline here was just absolutely mindblowing.
I had the pleasure to do the first ascent of the 53m line (OS) two years ago, with
Armin Holzer. We named it "Time Machine".
Hans Plank was the first to cross the 77m line.
Lukas Irmler did the first ascent and named it "
Neverland". Back then I was just able to walk one third of the line at my absolute limit. There are photos of me lying next to the line like dead after this attempt.
This summer I was ridiculously close to walking it with
Peter Auer and
Harry Höglinger. Peter snached a well deserved send of this line. I was playing mindgames by doing a walk that felt like a send to me but wasn't in a technical sense.
Last weekend it was my turn. Our joke of going "hiking" instead of highlining became true in the sense that I "hiked" this line after some serious mental block that I had to overcome.
Thanks to everyone supporting what I do:
Adidas,
AustriAlpin,
slackline.at.
Special thanks to Dani, Froschi (who took the photos), Andi and Fritz for super motivation and good vibrations. Let's go hiking again soon!
