Blog

Slacklining Grows Up

• July 2007
• Uncategorized

Last week was the Out Door International Trade Show in Friedrichsafen, Germany. Having been to many outdoor retailer shows in the States, I can say with conviction, those Germans know how to throw a party!

Dean and I were there representing Mammut and Five Ten, because Mammut is launching a new slackline webbing and tightening system that they have developed with input from Dean (which is an extremely good system, by the way).

To promote the new slackline system, Dean was scheduled to walk an exhibition highline, across the outdoor courtyard, three times a day, at 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm. This is not a normal highline situation, and especially not for someone like Dean who doesn’t own a watch and tends to be found (or mostly not found) in remote places with rocks…..

A 45 meter highline is a pretty strenuous walk, so he got a good workout over the four days.

The highline turned out to be the big buzz of the Out Door show, building to a wild climax on Saturday night. At certain surreal moments in life, you stand back asking yourself, “how did I end up here?” The party was in full rage, with lights flashing and things being thrown into the air, a German rock band pumping live music from the outdoor stage, free beer and food flowing from every direction (including straight up). Above a crowd of four thousand dancing, whooping partiers, Dean walked the line (right on schedule, at 9 pm). No falls.

For sure, ten years ago, living in my Oldsmobile and Dean in his beater VW Jetta (mostly held together by Bond-o, with brakes that no one was allowed to use for deceleration), I never could have imagined a scene like this. I remember Dean’s only slackline was a single, frayed eighty-foot piece of webbing. He couldn’t afford a longer one, and only about three other people were really into slacklining anyway.

As always, it just goes to show, you never know WHAT’s going to happen in this life……