MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - When Griffen Gilbert walks across a highline - a piece of webbing anchored high in the air - his mind is clear, his breathing relaxed.
Until he loses his balance, that is.
“Whenever I fall I try to grab the line,” Gilbert said. “I’m actually terrified of heights.”
This from a man who walked back and forth 100 feet in the air above the Clark Fork River for three days straight, reported the Missoulian (https://bit.ly/2eacO1H).
Drawing over 30 people from around the state, the Montana Highline Halloween Gathering, put together by Gilbert and his rock climbing partner Kyle Jones, billed itself as the first of its kind in Montana, bringing slackliners and highliners to Triple Bridges outside Alberton to test their mettle crossing four different lines strung up high above the water.
Some quick definitions: Slacklining is the sport of walking on a strip of webbing tied between two trees. It can be seen at most college campuses - definitely the University of Montana and Montana State - and city parks across the West.
Once they get the balancing down, the loose line lets slackliners bounce and do tricks and jumps on the lines, all in their bare feet.
The more extreme, but no less safe, version is highlining. It’s largely the same idea as slacklining, but the lines are anchored high above the ground and the walker wears a harness and leash attached to the webbing.
At Triple Bridges, the lines were strung between the old Highway 10 bridge, which is now blocked off to cars, and the railroad bridge that crosses the river diagonally right beside it.
By the afternoon, the crowds had cleared out, packing up after waking to rain that morning, and Gilbert and Jones were the only highliners left.
Gilbert still had a few walks in him, though.
Monkeying out through the steel tresses underneath the railroad tracks, Gilbert shuffled along, using a climbing rope they’d strung up as a hand rail to keep his balance.
Looking so life-sized moments earlier, he now looked tiny compared to the massive bridge, tall pine trees and the wide, swirling river moving along below.
Reaching the anchor of the closest line, which was about 180 feet long, Gilbert prepared for his walk.
Removing his jacket, rolling up his sweatpants, taking off his socks and shoes and threading earbuds through his shirt, Gilbert was soon sitting on the line facing the bridge. The leash, made of climbing rope wrapped in webbing, tied his harness to a steel ring threaded around the highline.
He then swung underneath the line, feet crossed and hands grabbing one over the other to slide down to the other end of the line, underneath the walking bridge.
Held in place by his leash and harness, Gilbert sat with his arms over the line, feet dangling below, looking as relaxed as a person could with nothing but air between them and the rocky, bushy shore 100 feet below.
He sat up on the line, shook his limbs out, then, slow and steady, stood up, and was walking.
Index fingers loosely pointing to the sky, his wrists and arms were in constant motion, an almost lazy sort of twitch, while from the waist down he remained as straight as if he were walking on solid ground.
With slight pauses here and there to regain - or maintain - balance, Gilbert never looked to be in any danger of falling. Although every sudden lean looked to be the beginning of a tumble, he kept moving.
After about three minutes, he was across, Jones clapping from his seat near the anchor, a smile plastered on both of their faces.
“This is my personal record,” Gilbert said, pointing to the 180-foot line. “I believe it’s the longest highline walked in Montana as well.”
With such a loose community of highliners in Montana, he said there aren’t official records kept; word of mouth does the job.
Both the lines they strung up had backups of climbing rope taut underneath the webbing, which, along with the multiple anchors and leash line, makes it safer than rock climbing, Gilbert said, since there’s no danger of hitting against anything when you fall.
“It’s actually safer,” he said. “It’s just terrifying.”
Jones said highlining was started by rock climbers who used it to practice steeling their nerves over extreme heights. After a while, it took on a life of its own, especially when the popularity of slacklining boomed in the last couple of decades.
Now the sport has its own dedicated followers, drawn not for an adrenaline fix, as some might assume, but rather a meditative one.
“It’s all about your breath,” Gilbert said. “I’m in the moment and everything washes away.”
The only adrenaline rush comes when he falls, making getting back up and relaxing again even more of a challenge.
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The mental aspect becomes clear in the difference between slacklining and highlining. In theory, it’s really the same thing - balancing and walking across a piece of webbing, trying not to fall.
But Jones - who said he’s a fairly accomplished slackliner and licensed skydiver - struggles on the highline, completing his first full walk across the shorter of the two lines just recently.
He’d only stood up on a highline a handful of times before that.
“If you (don’t) let yourself freak out, it’s a very unique experience,” he said. “It’s kind of a forced meditation . as soon as the mind wanders, you’ll lose it.
“I can only hang onto that for a brief moment.”
And yes, Jones said, highlining is much scarier than jumping out of a plane.
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Jay Styles, who lives in Pattee Creek outside Alberton, said he and his wife were bicycling on Fish Creek Road when they came across the highline festival.
He and his brothers would play around on slacklines as children, Styles said, and he was duly impressed by the highliners.
“I decided I got to make a video of this, ’cause this is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid,” he said.
The video, which Styles showed to Gilbert and Jones on his Macbook, was made up from still images and short clips showing a few falls and a few completed walks from the previous afternoon.
He promised the next time they rigged up their lines, he would bring his drone to get some better shots.
Gilbert walked through the tresses to the second line that spanned 50 feet between the two bridges.
After a couple walks back and forth, with a little egging on from Jones, he tried a couple of tricks.
First was the exposure turn, where Gilbert turned his body to face away from the bridge, in line with the webbing beneath. He held a quick meditation pose, squatting with hands pressed together in prayer, before resuming his walk.
Then he tried a double knee drop, hooking his feet around the line, lowering both knees below it.
That one got him. In a tumble Gilbert grabbed at the line, then regained his footing and put one foot in front of the other to the anchor.
“That’s probably all the walking I got in me,” he said, leaning against the bridge strut.
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Information from: Missoulian, https://www.missoulian.com
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