The highest place, not of a house, tree, city or mountain. But the highest place of my district where I could possibly walk a line.

When I saw a picture, not unlike the following, in a tourist folder, I knew I had to do it.

Mørkgonga, Norway

* "The dark path"

I have never set up a highline before. I know how to secure myself from years of climbing experience, and about the importance of redundancy. And I had read about the things to consider on the almighty Internets. So I felt pretty good about this, and a bit scared.

I packed my gear into a crammed 35l backpack, drove to the foot of the mountain and started the hike. It took about an hour to reach the location, with most of the climb going through loose debris. I found a hiking stick along the way, propped up to a tree right where the most difficult part of the climb began. Looking at the climb, I was very tempted to borrow it for the day, but then the person who lost it might have come back just today to search for it. I thought, you just don't do that kind of thing in this country where people display such an amazing level of trust in anyone else.

I reached the top, slowly and steadily. The canyon is about 15m wide, and 50m high at the face of the cliff, with a great view on the fjord some 600m below. The path mounts up through the canyon. I set up the line. I will not slack-babble much about the setup.



I climbed on the line. Stood up. And jumped back down again.

The difficult part of this is to convince your mind that falling is not an issue, once there is no ground below you. I did that. I climbed again on the line, stood up, and jumped back down again.

I repeated the exercise a few times, until it started to drizzle a bit.

I hooked myself onto the line, pulled myself to the middle of the canyon and spent some time looking down. I pulled myself to the other side. From that side, you had a much nicer view in the distance, which distracted me a bit from the view down. During the first attempts, I realized that the line chafed on an old tree that lay on that side of the canyon, which impeded it to swing to the one side. But only barely, and it would stop once I had taken two more steps.

Eventually, it worked. I walked. Once walking, it was all good. I knew, I would not want to fall, because it is very exhausting to get back up again, but that it was safe. The walking itself is suprisingly unspectacular, once you have your mind at ease.



I repeated that exercise a few times as well, to get the hang of it. As it happened, I did not fall. I just cut my foot on a bit of wood when jumping off the line, but that'll heal.

When I was exhausted, I started to wonder how it would be to fall, because that is something you should have done as well. I walked to the edge of the cliff and dropped. It was nice, and bouncy. Only then however did I realize that despite having a few knots to hold on in my catching leash, it would have been a lot more exhausting than planned to climb back up to the line when actually hanging two meters below it, having only a thin climbing rope to hold to. I managed to do it once, but decided I wouldn't try again. Next time, I will be better prepared for that.

Anyway. Here is a video, shot by a water- and shockproof, but very unsmart small camera. The high contrast between the dark canyon and the sky didn't work out very well.