US Trip 2013 - Take 1; Tacoma & Ashland

I am here in US for few days already and so far the trip was really nice even though Jordan and I didn't make it yet to one of our main targets, which Lodi/CA. After arriving in Tacoma/WA we had a few chill days. Jordan got a bit sick so it wasn't as active as we planned (meaning no bouldering or climbing) but we managed to organize few important things for our trip, pack and we even went for a short slacklining session. It was kind of weird to slackline after almost 2 months brake but it helped me to realize how much work I have to do. It is time to get back on it!

Together with Jordan we went to Chambers Bay Park to set up a line on this amazing structure. I think Jordan was thinking about setting this line for quite a while but apparently someone already did it before us and he was in EU for really long time too. It was really nice to do this line together at his home spot. I wish the park had some big trees - it would be such an amazing longline location. We had only few hours to sesh the line but Jordan was able to take some nice pictures. We also used my fresh green Type-18 webbing from Balance Community for the first time and I must say it's a great line. You can check few pictures from or session ...

We left Tacoma on Friday stuffed with delicious food cooked by Jordan's parents and drove straight to Ashland/Oregon to meet up with slackline protagonist Scott Balcom. I would believe every slackliner knows or should know who he is. If you do not know, he is the first guy to walk a highline (Lost Arrow Spire), publish a slackline book and he pretty much 'invented' our sport and bunch of slacklining gear.

We were really psyched to meet Scott again. It's been a while since the last time we saw each other. We knew he is really psyched on the videos of rodeolining we were posting lately on the web, so the plan was to go to the park rodeoline together. I was speaking with Jordan the other night and he said; 'would you ever think we will be teaching Scott Balcom how to rodeo line?!'. The answer was no. Slacklining takes you in really unexpected directions sometimes ...

After restful night we had an amazing day in Ashland. At the morning went longboarding a bit, then a visit to Scott's shop and a 'slackline history class'. We had a chance to see all the prototypes, evolution of slackline gear as well as some other projects Scott is working on. Some cool footage was taken for sure (if you're a gear nerd as we are) ...

We went to Triangle Park ans set up two rodeolines and one old-school slackline with Scott's gear. We had 15m rodeoline set-up with Type-18 webbing and about 3-4m of sag, 25m rodeoline set-up with Aero webbing with about 5-6m of sag and 5/8" tubular webbing tensioned with SlackJack - true old-school set-up great for playing around and surfing. It was a great day and we all had fun. I was getting back in shape and got few really good sideways surfs, Jordan was going big (or I should say HUGE) and Scott was playing around on still new to him rodeoline. Here is few GoPro snapshots for you ...

Today is a bit rainy and we are packing up and leaving soon to Lodi, CA where we'll stay for 2 - 2,5 weeks. We are going to meet up with Faith Dickey and then tomorrow do our first jump (tandem) and then our AFF course. After this we'll continue to jump with bunch of friends and do around 150 jumps with some highlining and bouldering in Bay Area in between. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Peace & SlackOn!