The History of Slackline: Who Took the First Step on Air?

It all started in a parking lot

Slackline as we know it today – walking on a strip of webbing – dates back to the early 1980s in Yosemite, USA. Young climbers there tried walking along the steel chains strung between posts in parking lots.

For some of them, though, that wasn’t enough. They came up with the idea of rigging long climbing slings instead of chains and trying to balance on those. Adam Grosowsky and Jeff Ellington are considered the “founders” of slackline: in the summer of 1983, they rigged what is now a cult highline on the stunning Lost Arrow Spire rock tower in Yosemite.

They didn’t manage to walk this 17-metre-long and almost 900-metre-high line in one go, but word of their daring attempt spread fast, and that very autumn two other Americans – Scott Balcom and Chris Carpenter – walked the world’s first highline. Rather unromantically, it was rigged between the arches of a highway bridge in Pasadena, California. Two years later, Scott Balcom became the first person in the world to walk Lost Arrow Spire.

The golden nineties

In the 1990s, slackline slowly spread around the world. It remained popular mainly among climbers, largely because the gear was expensive and hard to come by.

Slackline in the Czech Republic

1. 2002

   People in the Czech Republic were already walking slacklines around 2002, but the sport only became widely known around 2007, when the first slackline festival was held at Bišík near Adršpach.

2. 2008

   Back then, getting quality slackline gear in the Czech Republic was nearly impossible. That was one of the reasons why, in 2008, we founded Slackshop.cz (and later the EQB Slacklines brand) and started making slackline gear ourselves.

3. 2008–2015

   From 2008 to 2015, a festival was held every year at the outdoor swimming pool in Hejnice in the Jizera Mountains. The slackline community grew steadily, smaller clubs and slackline teams began to form, and the Czech Slackline Association (ČAS) was founded.

4. 2016

   Since 2016, Woodslack has been held in Světlá nad Sázavou, and Strojírna, an indoor trickline training space, opened in Prague. The Czech Trickline Cup also takes place regularly.

Quo vadis, slackline?

Over the last 10 years, slackline has established itself as a fully independent sport with many disciplines. It has found its way into parks in many of the world’s big cities. For many people, it has become a lifestyle and a philosophy. From spring to autumn, festivals attended by thousands of people take place all over the world.

What makes slacklining so attractive? Why do people so often get “hooked” from the very first step? Try it yourself – the first step is yours.