DTA Teknik Show

From the 31st of September to the 1st of October the Somewhereelseland Team had the opportunity to present their highline skills during the 'Hand's On Days' demo in Jarocin, Poland. The three of us walked a 51m long Midline stretched between two old, hollow lamp posts. The poles were set into concrete bases and had been attached to the ground with stakes and truck straps and ratchets. The rig looked pretty sketchy and we were thinking the whole time, 'these poles are going to break, these poles are going to break.' I think the only reason they didn't break is because we rigged the line considerably lower than they had hoped, but honestly it wasn't worth the risk to rig it any higher.

The rigging was even strong enough to walk on and even do some butt-bounces and some surfing, but the poles were moving quite dramatically under the stress. We used 1" threaded tubular webbing tensioned with the 6:1 SMC pulley system. We didn't bother to use a back-up rope because of the low height of the line.

We were scheduled to walk a couple of times during the day and do some tricks. Each of us walked once during the show, and because of the length of the line, we had to walk fast and tricks were only possible near the ends. But we did some nice tricks and I think people enjoyed the show.

In the evening we got to stay at a 'hotel' that was more of a boarding room for traveling agricultural equipment salesman, and when we ate breakfast every morning on the little table, we felt a little out of place. We returned the second day with a much larger crowd and a bit more excitement for such a strange line. We did another show and after the people had gone, all of us walked the line free-solo in both directions.

Despite some confusion with the owner about travel costs, we got payed and I have to say that we did really well as the team.

Thanks to Marcin Tomaszewski and his lovely wife which connected us with the company. Before this job Jordan sold some highlining pictures to this company. They used it their product catalog. It is the photo of me walking "Heaven's Gate" Highline in Meteora with sentence on it saying: "Trust and self-confidence at any time".