Slackline Memories Over a Frozen Waterfall

AcroYoga, Highlining, and Circus!

It’s early, it’s cold, the kind of cold that spells itself out every time you take a breath. I’m up with the sun, excited and getting ready to roll over to a friend’s house. My backpack is stuffed with snacks, drinks, juggling clubs, and some extra warm clothes. My toes are tingling, but not due to the cold, due to the excitement of the day ahead. With my bag packed and truck warmed up, I head out to meet my friends, and follow them to our playground location. We are headed to a place called the “Lower Fishbowl” at McKay Falls, a beautiful spot in the Oregon woods with a creek that runs to a gorgeous waterfall. The water falls and mists down about 30′, reaching out to touch the sharp and jagged rocks waiting below. It’s a magic little spot in the woods that I have been to once before, the first time I ever tried to highline actually.

McKay Falls: The Lower Fishbowl

This whole adventure is happening because my friends Jason and Chelsey are meeting up with some of their friends, one who operates an XPro Heli-Quadcopter, to film a short video for their sponsors. They invited me to go to do some juggling and playing on the lines, and BAM, here we are pulling up to the parking spot to unload. The typical thunderous sounds of the rolling waterfall are nowhere to be heard. As if the white piles of solidified water crystals wasn’t enough to show how cold this morning was, the roaring waterfall lay still and silent. Frozen! No longer free and roaming the crevasses of the rocky floors. Frozen in time, displaying the raw power of mother natures will.

We unloaded and set up 2 lines. A 40’ line across the mouth of the frozen waterfall and a 90’ line stretching across the frozen bowl of water lying still beneath the falls. I’m wearing thermal bottoms with a warm, fuzzy, orange pair of pants as my second layer. Up top a thermal base, a long sleeve shirt, and a brown hoodie. I’m bundled up and ready to play on the lines.

At this point, I am early on in my practice of slacklining and highlining, so I am very amped to be out there getting some practice time on the lines. We all take turns getting after it, Half-mans, Full-mans, and plenty of falls, the XPro Heli-Quadcopter filming the whole time. The setting was pretty surreal, the frozen falls, the clear blue skies, and balancing ninjas walking across a tiny 1 inch webbing suspended in the air. I got to see people I admire just hanging out, having fun, playing in the woods like grown up children. It was a great treat, and a wonderful experience.

For one video take, I put on my neon green and pink, fuzzy onesie and got upstream with my juggling clubs. Jason and Chelsey laid down in the middle of the crystalized creek to do a Hand-to-Hand at the top of the waterfall. Jon and Aire each on a line, hanging out, balancing and holding tough. The Quadcopter started filming behind me as I began juggling, then tried to make its way over to Jason and Chelsey while they stuck a Hand-to-Hand. The challenge was the videographer wanted to catch all of us in one shot, which meant I could not drop a club while juggling during the take. I was still really fresh to juggling, especially juggling clubs. So the pressure was on, at least in my mind. I’m grateful for everyone’s patience during that shot, because I dropped the clubs and made us have to start over at least 6 times. Finally we got a shot in 1 take that started behind me and made it passed the Hand-to-Hand, all the way over the slackliners, ending high in the sky for and epic arial view of all of us.

Just Another Beautiful Day in Oregon

The whole day was an amazing YogaSlackers adventure, and a personal best for me at the time. I was able to Full-man both the 40’ and the 90’ lines set up. It was a day filled with fun times and great memories, super talented people and a gorgeous view. There was enough footage to make an awesome short video of our shenanigans for Jason and Chelsey’s sponsors.