Are you tied in?

Yes. We are always tied in. The leash is made of heavy duty rope, attached to the line with a titanium ring (by far the strongest piece of equipment with a breaking strain of c.88kn). The ring is installed in a closed-system, meaning it can’t just be unclipped or removed. The leash is attached to the highliner’s harness using a figure-8 knot. Look at my photos again; you’ll see the leash.

Are you guys adrenaline junkies?

Absolutely not. You wouldn’t really be able to walk very long highlines if you felt lots of adrenaline. By the time you’re in a position to think about successfully standing up on a highline, you likely are competent enough that the experience doesn’t provoke an adrenaline response. The first few leash-falls are likely going to give you a rush, but beyond that it really isn’t an adrenaline sport. Or, at least, that’s my experience of other highliners.

On another note, where highlines are rigged safely (i.e., using the correct equipment in the correct way, on suitable anchors), there is no rational cause for any kind of fear-response.

How do you get the line across?

Various ways, all of which basically involve passing a thinner rope, called the ‘tagline’ (e.g., 4mm paracord), across the gap before using that to pull the slackline across. To get this tagline across, we have various techniques. One is simply flying it over with a drone. In Scotland we currently do not have a drone; Amar’s drone met its demise when the rope blew up into the rotorblades. The most common way we do it is just by manually walking the tagline across. Sometimes this involves some climbing (e.g., when rigging the Old Man of Hoy, three of our crew climbed the Old Man, bringing the tagline with them). Sometimes it’s just as simple as dropping a length of tagline from each anchor point before going down to the bottom of the gap to join them together.

How did you guys start high lining?

I learnt everything I know from my Granny.