Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A Hocking Hills Highline


Last spring Levi(aka: Levi Tate, The Levitater, Mr. Evil) came to town to visit friends, family and possibly climb. He came during an amazing week of weather that allowed us hit the local Athens bouldering by day and paint the town red by night. We also managed to travel to the new for some bouldering, helping the crew dial in some problems before the rendezvous. While we were sitting around afterwards he mentioned that he was interested in setting up a highline at one of our only local crags( if you can call it that).

We decided that we would head out the next morning a set up a line at the Hocking Hills climbing and rappelling area. We planned to set it up on the gap between the "Rectangle Block" and the adjacent cliff, over the trail. It was about a 25ft gap and close to 40 ft to the deck, not to bad for our first highline. Being that this would be our first time setting a highline, we decided to not screw around and carried a ton of gear into the woods. However, two expeditions packs full might have been too much.

It took us about an hour to figure out what we need to set up the line. If you look at the photos you will see that we were pretty redundant. The core rig of our set up was the "slackline brothers" tension system, fully backed up. Our line was double threaded to make it both stiffer and stronger. The whole system was back up with a dynamic line that was ran under the line and taped to it.

The plan from the very beginning was for Levi to walk the line and if I was feeling up to it, I said I would give it a try, however my fear of heights said "NO". I will have to say it was pretty coll to see Levi on the line.

Check out the rest of the photos and the video below.








7 comments:

Levi Rose said...

Well, I never thought I would see the day. Great work putting that together, it was great to see that footage again. You can definitely tell I'm a little more timid on the high line, but not to shabby for my first time.

Tim said...

I would say well done for your first time. Did you have any problems viewing the video?

Levi Rose said...

No problems viewing the video. Do you have any good pictures from out trip to the New? I'm interested to see if you have any pictures from "Don't fear the Leaper".

Tim said...

Thats going to be my next post, a piece to get people motivated to sign up for the new river rendezvous.

Levi Rose said...

Awesome. Can you put together a CD of the Hocking Hills and New River photos/video for me?

Courtney Grimm said...

Tim, you said the video was by you. I specifically remember that I was the one who shot the video....that would be video by: COURTNEY

In fact, if you took out the music, I'm sure the blogging community would hear me say something to the effect of "I'm not watching because this is too scary."

Just an F.Y.I., brah

Tim said...

Video by = edited by
camera work by =what you would be looking for

Just an F.Y.I., sis