Walking on a string

It's called highlining and it's a dangerous walk done on a string over valleys. A narrow strip of strong, nylon webbing — usually an inch wide and a few millimeters thick — is strung between two anchor points and serves as a kind of balance beam. A record in the sport may have been made a few weeks ago when two brothers walked over a string 2,800-foot (853-meter) long across a series of gulleys that plunge 1,600 feet (488 meters). The walkers wear a waist-harness that links to a 3-inch steel ring around the webbing.

This walk was not made in one trip. It took six days. The hikers used the help of 18 friends and fellow highliners to navigate their webbing through and across the landscape — hiking lines up from the valley floor, rappelling down from the cliffs above and maneuvering through countless tree branches.

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent