September 30
Every afternoon, one corner of the Duck Pond park makes a transformation into what looks like a giant web of ropes strung between the trees. UNM students and the occasional curious passerby arrive at the spot to “slackline,” an activity based upon traversing these lines on foot above the ground."To do so requires an incredible amount of balance and focus," said David Bray, a UNM student studying geology. “But it feels incredible when you finally get it -- like you’re floating. You have to be totally relaxed.”For many of the students who come to slackline, the sport is a way of relieving stress and unwinding at the end of the day. However, there’s more to the gathering than slacklining: each day students do yoga, meditate, play music, study and socialize in the middle of “The Web.”As the sun goes down, slacklining gives way to music as people pull out instruments and sing songs together before packing up the lines and heading for home. On the weekends they make excursions to set up lines over rivers and harness themselves to lines high over canyons in the mountains.
