This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Slacklining can be tricky business between two trees; imagine trying to bridge the distance between two high rock towers in Castle Valley.
Théo Sanson, a professional slackliner from France, did just that last Sunday. Sanson crossed the roughly 1,640 feet between The Rectory mesa to the sandstone Castleton Tower, according to Camp 4 Collective, the Salt Lake City-based production company that shot the Frenchman's feat.
"We climbed the towers with our own gears," Sanson said. The crew also used three bolts on each side of the line, the same as climbers do for belays, he added. If one of the lines broke, Sanson had a second underneath him.
In highlining, he noted, everything is redundant.
Sanson also had a harness, "but never used it," he said. "If I fall I catch the lines and not fall."
Though Sanson feels he could remove the harness, he questioned whether that would be worth the risk.
To cut down on another hazard — aircraft flying by — Sanson and the crew filed a notice with aviation authorities, alerting pilots of the potential danger around the towers.
Camp 4 Collective speculated on its website that Sanson might have set a new world record. The Daily Mail, however, reported in May that a German slackliner, Alex Schulz, set a world record of walking about 2,000 feet in the Mongolian desert.
Whether or not his walk across the Utah sky was record-breaking, Sanson said he finds catharsis and therapy when he's crossing a highline like that.
"It works great for the body and the mind, finding balance within yourself and comprehend the world better," he said.
Twitter: @MikeyPanda