Ever since I moved to the Sacramento area about 8 months ago, I have been itching to find some local spots to setup a highline. I was initially very skeptical about ever being able to find one because this area is so gosh darn flat! After reading up online about a few different climbing areas around Sacramento, I decided I would go checkout a few spots along the American River when it's quite rocky. After about 8 hours of driving around and scoping different spots, I found the perfect place to rig an amazing highline.

A few days after finding this spot, I had already measured the gap on Google Earth, set the anchor points with Chris, and gotten a team together to rig this baby. Unfortunately we had about 8 weeks straight of heavy rainfall that caused a major delay in the project. But once the weather was good, it was go time!

Originally, Chris and I thought this line was about 170 feet long. Based upon this assumption, I pre-rigged with gear that was suitable for such a length of line. When we got to the gap ready to rig, we measured the distance with the laser and it turned out to be 216 ft. long! I was very happy that I brought extra gear so that we were able to rig the line (albeit, in a very funky way). The line ended up not having any tap on it for the last 80 feet as well as having a large knot in the backup rope. I wasn't too pleased with this rig, but it was going to have to do because it's all we had at the moment.

After rigging it was my turn to give the line a go. As I started out, it felt really nice. It was loose, just like how I like my highlines. For a 216 foot line, we had about 10 feet of sag in the middle, which makes the line very dynamic. We rigged it with Type-18, which made it even more dynamic and fun! I got the send on my second attempt as well as the return. I ended up walking the line a total of 2 full times that day. Everyone else gave the line a try and were not able to get too far on it. The missing tapes really throw everyone off because the backup would oscillate differently than the main line and would throw your vision off.

After having the line up for a few hours, we see a ranger start to approach us. Apparently, some tree worker guys called the rangers office to report some crazy line walkers down by the river. His boss gave him strict orders to get us out of there. The guy was really cool about it and was checking out our rigging as well as letting me get one last walk in. He also gave us some leads on how to get the sport recognized and legalized in the area. It sounds like a very long and arduous road to go down but, might be worth looking into for the long run.

Line-Specs