TARGET 100526

Highwire Walk

Step carefully!

Where "Watch your step!" really means it.

"No one gets lost on a straight and narrow road" is an old saying, for it to be this narrow is kind of ridiculous. Well, at least there's no traffic to contend with.

Lord & Lady Mayor

Lord and Lady Mayor

In Adrspach, Northeast Bohemia, in the Czech Republic, there are two impressive sandstone towers called Starosta and Starostova (Lord Mayor and Lady Mayor). Their tops stand 30 meters (approximately 99 feet) apart.

On May 3rd, 2008, legendary Austrian climber, highliner and photographer Heinz Zak walked across a "slack wire" between them. As the name implies, a "slack wire" is a "tightwire" that isn't stretched taut between the ends. As you can guess, this makes it much more wobbly and gives it plenty of room to sway back and forth. Walking a slack wire is much more difficult than walking a tight rope. A person on a tight wire has to balance the top of their body while his feet remain on a steady path. A person on a slack wire has to balance while his feet sway back and forth beneath him.

So, how does one learn to do something like that?

Start low and slow

Start low and slow and over something soft
and no matter what - go barefoot

Wear a safety line

When you get higher than you are tall, wear a safety line

Risking it much higher

Don't try it high until you're absolutely sure you can do it
.... but still wear that safety line.

Making progress

As for Heinz, he's making progress

Almost there

Just a few more steps

And nobody there to see it happen

And aside from a few friends and photographers, there's nobody there to see him do it.

FEEDBACK MAP

Feedback map

To learn more about Heinz Zak, take a look at the following web sites:

OnLineWebLibrary Blog
Oddity Central
XCiteFun.net

To learn more about slackwire walking, take a look at the following web sites:

Wikipedia
Slackline.com
Slackline Express (Teaches you how to do it.)