Slacklining on Ice - Self Portraits

coldclimb

I randomly came across some motivation out of the blue the other day, and went out and rigged a slackline on a frozen lake. Usually I just sit and stare out the window, since doing stuff alone is never as fun, and nobody else is around. :rofl This time I managed to get out and do it. Shot these from a tripod with a timer.

Enjoy! And let me know if you find any of these anything special. Sometimes it's tough for me to judge myself.

gus

Cool shots

How do you know if the ice will hold you ? Its thickness i mean.

Keeping in consideration i have never walked on ice/snow before

Also..what is securing the frame to the ice ? I can see it in the 2nd shot but dont know what it is.

Awais Yaqub

wow cool shots and nice avatar

KevinKal

Nice
Nice picture series ColdClimb. I'm impressed that you were able to get that far away from the camera, jump on the line, balance yourself and all within the time permitted by the timer .

Cheers,
Kevin K.

coldclimb

Humungus wrote:

Cool shots

How do you know if the ice will hold you ? Its thickness i mean.

Keeping in consideration i have never walked on ice/snow before

Also..what is securing the frame to the ice ? I can see it in the 2nd shot but dont know what it is.

Heh, it's always interesting to me to meet people who have never experienced snow. Frozen lakes will support people walking on them at about four inches thick. This one is probably closer to two feet thick right now. It's a given that in Alaska in February, any lake will be safe for walking or even driving a car on, unless there's movement in the water such as a spring or a stream coming in.

The anchor is called a "bollard." We adapted it from mountaineering circles and it works quite well for this (And I think before mountaineers found it, sailors have used them forever, just not usually chipped in the ice). Basically it's a teardrop shape chipped out of the ice with an overhanging lip. We've done this once before, check out the first picture in this thread for a better idea of the setup: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=24646

And Kevin, check the sliding tracks. It's a ten second timer, so I hit the button, ran, slid into starting position, and jumped on. Fun stuff. The falls also have to be much more graceful than usual to avoid going down hard. It's kind of a cool new element compared to slacklining over ground.