Those out walking around the suspension bridge at Miles Canyon on Sunday, Sept. 21 just before noon may have seen a surprising scene. Two young men, David Martin and Hayden Griffis, and their one-man support crew were setting a slack line between the opposing basalt walls of the canyon.
Griffis, 28, works as an electrician in Whitehorse. Martin, 33, is an artist who moved to Whitehorse to blow glass at Lumel Studios but for the last three years, he has been building a youth employment program through the Yukon Literacy Coalition.
They have been slack lining for over ten years, but as of Sunday, never over water.
Slack lines are much more accessible than tightropes. Setup can be done just about anywhere the users can find to anchor their line: trees, boulders, truck bumpers and picnic tables to name a few.
It took the pair two hours to get theirs ready. Martin sent the two-inch-wide line over to Griffis on the end of a fishing line. He landed it on the second cast.
They secured the line with simple tension wrap around trees. Once final adjustments are made, everything is secured with locked carabiners.
When asked about how much tension is enough tension, Martin says a little bounce is nice. He explains that it requires a lot of practice and core strength to get to the point when you can make it slack. He says they’ve hit the sweet spot before getting too much sway in the middle.
They took turns on the line, stepping one foot directly in front of the other, often using a big toe or instep of their feet to help guide their progress. They held their arms out and keep their eyes on the prize ahead, 96 metres away on the other side.
It was hard to know where to look. The water below was churning, the trees on the other wide of the canyon were moving.
“It’s pretty trippy,” says Martin. “I am trying to focus a little bit ahead of me on the line but slightly under the line so it’s like this empty space I am trying to zone into.”
They were not the first to try to cross the canyon this way. Others have done it in the past, but not many.
“It’s definitely a cool spot and we want to start doing a little bit more highlining like this. If it feels good we’ll try to walk across, do a 180 on the line and walk back across,” Martin says.
Friends and roommates watched on with coffees in hand from the canyon edge as their dogs swirled around their legs. None of them are slackliners. They say the two men on the line had been talking about the feat all summer before finally deciding to do it. They had been practicing in the park with soft grass to fall on. Their line at the park was longer but the added fear factor of being 30 metres above water makes this canyon effort particularly daunting.
The mental stalling point is getting over the canyon edge and balancing above the fast-moving blue-green water below. Their harnesses caught them as they fell then they hung by their hands from the line. They could shift grip the few metres back up and over the rocks to the canyon edge where they could try again. At one point, the wind picked up. People lined the suspension bridge with their cameras and cellphones out. Occasionally they clapped or hooted encouragement.
“It’s kind of a relief once you’re away the rocks but the further you get, the less certain you are where your centre of gravity lies and it feels like it’s easier to get off balance,” Martin says.
“It’s scary.”
In between turns, they retired to camping chairs or stand staring across the water. Martin pulled his thick wool socks on intermittently to keep his feet warm. In the background, the death metal band Revocation cranked from their portable speaker.
After two hours of trying, neither made it across. They grew tired and the gusting wind was a factor.
Martin is moving to Terrace, B.C., in mid-October and feels this may have been the last good weekend to make the attempt but swears he’ll be back next year.
