Walkin' a Tightrope

Author:
SI Staff
Publish date:
Aug 7, 2013

Walkin' a Tightrope

Kane Petersen

High-wire artist Kane Petersen successfully walks a tightrope 300 meters above Melbourne on Wednesday, Sept. 16. The walk was the highest tightrope walk ever attempted in the Southern Hemisphere.

Nik Wallenda

Nik Wallenda walks a 1,800-foot tightrope, suspended 173 feet in the air, from the U.S. side to the Canadian side directly over the Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The famous funambulist is the first to achieve this feat. He holds six world records for other tightrope walking stunts, including the longest and highest tightrope crossing by bicycle.

Samuel Volery

Samuel Volery walking the line during the Highline Extreme event in Moleson Peak, western Switzerland.

Nicolas Rebert

Nicolas Rebert walks on the line during the Highline Extreme event in Moleson Peak, western Switzerland.

Guillaume Rolland

Guillaume Rolland at the Highline Extreme event in Moleson Peak, western Switzerland. Fifty of the European best slackliners compete until Sept. 27, 2015, on six different lines ranging from 45 meters to 495 meters.

Two athetes compete in the fog during the Highline Extreme event.

Quirin Herterich

Quirin Herterich walks the line at the Highline Extreme event in western Switzerland.

Nik Wallenda

High wire performer Nik Wallenda practices June 18, 2014, in Sarasota, Fla. Wallenda, a seventh generation high-wire walker, walked across the Grand Canyon on June 23, 2013.

Nik Wallenda

Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda (the tiny red dot you can see in the dark sky) walks from Marina City's west tower to the top of the 671-foot-tall Leo Burnett building in Chicago on November 2, 2014. The walk, which spanned 454 feet, is the highest and steepest skyscraper walk in the history of the Flying Wallenda family.

Andrea Loreni

Andrea Loreni performs in Rome with the Coliseum in the background. As part of an all-night street party, Loreni's skywalk was part of numerous artistic shows, concerts and film projections.

A man crosses on a slickline over the water at Apoador beach in Rio de Janeiro.

A man walks on a slackline across the ocean at Ipanema beach on June 8, 2014, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Slacklining differs from tightrope walking in that the line is dynamic, allowing performers like the toga-wearing Lewis to bounce on the line like it's a long and narrow trampoline.

Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP/Getty Images

Andy Lewis of the U.S. balances as he walks on a highline from the rooftop of a building in Bangkok on July 23, 2014. Lewis set a world record after walking on a highline from the rooftop of a building to another covering a distance of 169 meters in one hour and five minutes.

French highliner Julien Millot performs on the Paradiski cable way, 380m high, on Dec. 16, 2013, in front of the Mont Blanc mountain in La Plagne.

A climber walks over a 'Slackline' at the cliffs of Stoja on Aug. 5, 2014, near Pula, Croatia.

International circus superstar Bello Nock took over Times Square on June 3, 2014, in New York City as he spent eight hours on a high wire above New Yorkers in the first of several big stunts he is doing this summer. The stunt, produced by Mandt Bros. Productions, will stream live on TheUltimate.com.

Exelon Kyle

Exelon Kyle walks between two hot air balloons in Kunming, China. Kyle took just 38.35 seconds to traverse the 18-meter rope, setting a Guinness World Record.

Nik Wallenda

Nik Wallenda walks across a 2-inch wire 1,500 feet above the ground to cross the Grand Canyon.

Nik Wallenda

Daredevil Nik Wallenda during his 1,500-foot (457 meters) tightrope walk 100 feet (30.5 meters) above the beach on Aug. 9, 2012, in Atlantic City.

Bello Nock

John Fitzhugh/Biloxi Sun Herald/MCT/Getty Images

Comic daredevil Bello Nock walks on a high wire strung across the front of the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Miss., on June 21, 2012. Nock made the 360-foot walk on a wire suspended 32 stories above the ground to promote an upcoming show, Fata Morgana, at the casino.

Michael Kemeter

Austrian Michael Kemeter walks across the highest taut slackline at 3,770 meters altitude, battling blowing wind and snow.

Andy Lewis

Andy Lewis performs on a slackline as part of Madonna's Super Bowl XLVI halftime show.

Freddy Nock

Swiss tightrope walker Freddy Nock walks on the carrying cable of the Diavolezza Cable Car towards the mountain station on 2,978 meters above sea level. Nock was attempting to set a new world record by doing seven summits in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in seven days.

Saimaiti Aishan

Saimaiti Aishan, a 27-year-old Uighur acrobat of tightrope walking, made history in August 2011 when he became the first person to walk on a 15-meter-long tightrope connected between two hot air balloons. He set a record for tightrope walking at 30 meters.

Philippe Petit

Philippe Petit, a French high wire artist, walks across a high wire suspended between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City.

Jay Cochrane

Canadian Jay Cochrane perilously walks on a high wire approximately 40 stories above the American Falls at Niagara Falls. Cochrane's walk covered a distance of 200 feet - from the pinnacle of the Sheraton on the Falls Hotel to the Casino Tower.

Ahdili

Uygur acrobat Ahdili successfully set a new Guinness world record by walking 2,254 feet on a high wire at a canyon in southwest China.

Ahdili

After breaking the world record, Ahdili decides to show off a little more and stands on his head on the high wire.

Kwon Won-tae

South Korean Kwon Won-tae walks a high wire during the World High Wire Championships in Seoul, South Korea. Twenty-seven high wire walkers from 14 countries challenged on the high wire, a wire rope 30 millimeters in diameter stretching 1,000 meters across the Han River in Seoul.

Aixiguli

Aixiguli of China walks the high wire during the World High Wire Championships.

Jade Kindar-Martin

Jade Kindar-Martin of the United States walks the high wire during the World High Wire Championships.

Falco

German high-wire artists Falco (top) and Tamara Traber perform at the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain, bordering Austria, at 2,963 meters. The stunt amid the mountain's peaks in Germany and Austria was meant to advertise tourism.

A person walks on a tightrope that connects the spheres of the atomium in Brussels.

Freddy Nock

Swiss high wire artist Freddy Nock walks on the cable of the Corvatsch cable car from the upper station, 10,837 feet over sea level, down to the base station in Silvaplana, Switzerland, to set a new Guinness world record.

Jorge Arturo Ojeda

Jorge Arturo Ojeda of Ecuador competes during the speed race of the 2009 Hangang High Wire World Championship in Seoul, in which participants cross the Han River on a 1 km (0.62 miles) wire. Twenty high-wire walkers from 12 countries participated in the event, which is part of the annual "Hi Seoul Festival" organized by Seoul City.

Ya Kefujiang Maimitili

Ya Kefujiang Maimitili of China competes during the speed race of the 2009 Hangang High Wire World Championship.

Alfred Nock Junior (R) and Ya Kefujiang Maimitili

Alfred Nock Junior (right) of Switzerland helps Ya Kefujiang Maimitili of China after Ya dropped his bar during the speed race of the 2009 Hangang High Wire World Championship.

The Flying Wallendas

The Flying Wallendas of Sarasota, Fla., perform their seven-person Grand Pyramid at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit. Bottom row from left: Tino Wallenda, 47, Sacha Paulata, 48, Nikolas Wallenda, 19 and Terry Troffer, 43. Second row from left, Tony Hernandez, 22, and Alida Wallenda, 23. Top is Delilah Wallenda, 45.

Karl Wallenda

Sixty-seven-year-old Karl Wallenda, of the Flying Wallendas starts a 600-foot walk across Philadelphia's Veteran's Stadium between halves of Montreal Expos vs. Philadelphia Phillies game in Philadelphia, Pa. AUG. 13, 1972. At center he sits down on wire and waves to ground crew to tighten ropes preventing swaying of wire.

Denis Josselin

French tightrope walker Denis Josselin performs over the Seine river in Paris, on April 6, 2014.

Nik Wallenda

Nik Wallenda impressively and safely pedals a bicycle more than 100 feet across the Bridge Suite of the Paradise Island Atlantis resort in Nassau, the Bahamas. Wallenda, of the famous Flying Wallendas circus family, cycled along the wire some 260 feet above the ocean without a safety net to break his own Guinness World Record.

Mario Wallenda

Mario Wallenda, also of the Flying Wallendas, rides his specially constructed "skycycle" across the Chicago River in downtown Chicago. The 60-something Wallenda has been in a wheelchair since a high-wire accident in 1962 left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Nik Wallenda

Nik Wallenda, a seventh-generation high-wire daredevil, walks along a high wire to the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Sarasota, Fla., to promote the upcoming season of Circus Sarasota.

Delilah Wallenda and son Nik Wallenda

36-delilah-Wallenda(2).jpg — Ricardo Arduengo/AP

High-wire acrobats Delilah Wallenda (right) lowers her head as her son Nik Wallenda crosses over her during their high-wire act where the two simultaneously walked across a 300-foot-long wire suspended 100 feet in the air between two towers of the Conrad Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The act commemorated Nik's grandfather, Karl Wallenda, who tried to perform the same feat in 1978 but fell to his death at age 73.

Angel Wallenda

Angel Wallenda performs at Stone Mountain, Ga. Angel took to the high-wire even after losing a leg to cancer, but died of the disease on May 3, 1996, at age 28.

Falco Traber

Falco Traber balances on a 28-millimeter diameter wire 65 feet above the old town of Baden-Baden in southwest Germany. Traber set a new world record of 2,116 feet balancing on an unsecured high wire.

Saimaiti Aishan

Saimaiti Aishan, the seventh-generation Dawazi high wire stuntman from China, challenges the Tianmenshan Mountain cableway in Zhangjiajie, China. Unfortunately, the steepest section of the cable defeated Aishan, and he could not complete his walk.

David Dimitri

Artist David Dimitri from Switzerland performs on the high wire during the opening ceremony prior to the Confederations Cup match between Germany and Australia at the FIFA World Cup stadium in Frankfurt, Germany.

Hamed Heidari walks across a slackline anchored between two rocks in the mountains overlooking Tehran, Iran.