I am almost speechless after watching this People Are Awesome 2013 video. There are athletic stunts and achievements here I have never even heard of, and many are clearly somewhat established “sports.” It also reminds me how nuts some people are to take these risks…like walking a tightrope between two moving trucks about to enter two different tunnels. Still can’t believe that is for real.
Archive for category slacklining, highlining and wire walking
Philippe Petit walks between the Twin Towers—1974
Philippe Petit’s movie, “Man On Wire,” receives recognition around September 11th for his incredible stunt of walking on a cable between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. When asked why he did it, he said “There is no ‘why.’ ” He was arrested and sentenced to a free kiddie show in Central Park. He said he just couldn’t resist climbing and walking on wires since he was a small boy. And he didn’t just walk across once…he spent 40 minutes doing knee bends, lying down, dancing and going back and forth eight times to avoid and tease the police trying to grab him.
Here is the trailer for the movie.
Here is the news report by Walter Cronkite in 1974.
Here are Philippe’s own comments years later.
Freddy Nock climbs mountains a special way
It’s simply amazing to me that people do these things…
A 46-year-old Swiss stuntman, Freddy Nock, has ascended a nearly 10,000-foot-high mountain by tightrope walking a two-inch-wide cable car wire—without the aid of any safety gear.
He clambered up the cable to the top of Bavaria’s Zugspitze mountain with only a balancing pole. It took the daredevil less than 90 minutes to make the ascent, which is the longest and highest wire-walk in history, the Daily Mail reports.
Nock has an even more daring stunt planned for later this month: He’ll ride a bike across a wire in an effort to raise funds for Unicef, reports The Telegraph.
look at those abs!
no net beneath him; no safety line attached to the cable
A 46-year-old Swiss stuntman, Freddy Nock, has ascended a nearly 10,000-foot-high mountain by tightrope walking a two-inch-wide cable car wire—without the aid of any safety gear.
He clambered up the cable to the top of Bavaria’s Zugspitze mountain with only a balancing pole. It took the daredevil less than 90 minutes to make the ascent, which is the longest and highest wire-walk in history, the Daily Mail reports.
Nock has an even more daring stunt planned for later this month: He’ll ride a bike across a wire in an effort to raise funds for Unicef, reports The Telegraph.
Slacklining And Highlining
Feb 23
Here is a sport that really looks difficult, but also like lots of fun. You can try it at just a foot off of the ground, but it’s more exciting to watch someone do it much higher. Now the other question you might have is how do you attach the highline to its two ends?
Slacklining is a balance sport that uses nylon webbing tensioned between two anchor points. Slacklining is distinct from tightrope walking in that the line is not held rigidly taut (although it is still under some tension); it is instead dynamic, stretching and bouncing like a long and narrow trampoline. The line’s tension can be adjusted to suit the user and different types of dynamic webbing can be used to achieve a variety of feats. The line itself is flat, due to the nature of webbing, thus keeping the slacker’s footing from rolling as would be the case with an ordinary rope. The dynamic nature of the line allows for impressive tricks and stunts.
Highlining is slacklining at large distances above the ground or water. This second video gives some insight into how the crew sets up a slackline and does the filming. This took place at the longest highline in Europe (103 meters = 338 feet) and the height is 50 meters = 164 feet.
You can see more of these videos and others showing rock climbing at this site .