The Gap



This is me



Brother Andrew



Good Friend Stephen


I started slacklining in the fall of 2004 with my roommate at the time Stephen Goebel. To be honest we had no idea what we were doing. We couldn’t setup a good line, we certainly couldn’t walk one, but we both thought it was a fun activity and wanted to get good at it. We started slow, challenges to walk half way across the line, then all the way, then down and back. We eventually got good enough that we started doing tricks on the line. Now I don’t know about him but for me the line was a place that I could set all other things in my life aside and focus on a one inch wide piece of existence. It is “Zen” like, and kinda hippie.

Well after not too long we decided to up the challenge of our new favorite pastime and move the height of the line up. It started with moving it up above waist height, then to head height, and after not too long we were throwing around the idea of setting a line up so high that we would need safety equipment to walk the line. We put this plan into form in the spring of 2005. We step up our first highline in city park in Fort Collins. It was about 20 feet high, and it was a rush. After that day we decided that we wanted to walk the gap between the teeth at Horsetooth Rock, and we wanted to do it before we graduated.

By our senior year we were both good enough that we could walk just about any kind of line and we both had done a couple of highlines. We both remembered our commitment and planned on living up to it. We got together and chatted about the event various time Stephen’s last semester (I am graduating a year late, he is smarter than I and got his degree in four year). We were planning on walking the gap one of our last weeks of school, well with us both being as busy as we are we had to push it back to the Monday after graduation.

It was a beautiful day we set the line up. There were a handful of people that join us that day which would include Stephen’s future wife Amy, my girlfriend at the time Amanda, my brother and his friend Jeff Mullen, and others. Stephen, my brother Andrew, Jeff and I were the only ones that walked the line that day. We all made it across and we all loved it. So the question on my mind is, “whats next?” - feel free to give me ideas :)