Introduction

Setting up a slackline can sometimes be a daunting task, especially as you get into longer and longer lines. You almost have to devote an entire day just to be able to get out there on to a line! Well, there are several steps you can take in order to make this whole process WAY easier and considerably less time draining. In fact, using the techniques that we will discuss in this article as well as the following few articles in this series, you can setup a 300 - 400 foot line by yourself in under 15 minutes! If you have just an hour to play, that gives you a total of about 35-40 minutes of walking time! A drastic improvement over not going out at all for fear of going over your allotted time.

Methods

What I would like to discuss here are the steps you can take at your home in order to streamline your rigging process when you get to the park. Everything I am going to cover can be done at home the night before or right before you go out. These steps are critical in order to have an effective rigging system that takes little time to execute.

Lay Out and Pre-Rig Your Gear

The first step in the whole process is to lay out the gear you need for your line. This includes the following components:

• Your Slackline Webbing, already stuffed into a BC LineBag\
• Pulley System - Already Reeved - Includes the following components
  • 2x Main Pulleys
  • Brake
  • Length of Static Rope
  • Various Connectors
• Multiplier Kit
• 2x Spansets (one for static side, one for tensioning side)
• 2x Tree Protection (one for static side, one for tensioning side)
• 2x Webbing Anchors (one for static side, one for tensioning side)
• Appropriately sized BC Haul Bag

Once you have these components laid out in front of you, it will be easier to properly pack them away in your BC Haul Bag. First, you will want to make sure all your components are properly pre-rigged. By this, I mean your Slackline Webbing should be already stuffed into a BC LineBag, or nicely coiled (I usually install the static end Alpine WebLock 3.0 on the end of the line to further speed up rigging), your pulley system is already assembled and reeved correctly with all the components connected, your pulley system is also nicely coiled, and all other components are nicely laid out for easy use in the field. This will save you a ton of time later when you go to actually set up the line.

Pack Your Bag

Okay, now comes the packing of the bag section of the pre-rigging process. The goal with this step is to have the first thing you grab out of your bag at the park be the first thing you need. So, if you are on the static side of the line and you need to wrap the tree with your tree pro, your static-side tree protection should be right on the top of your bag.

The way that I rig and will be teaching you how to rig, we will be starting the whole process on the static side. This means that all the static-side gear will be needed first, so it should go on top. The very last thing we will need in the rigging process will be our Multiplier Kit. This is used to apply more tension to our line once everything is already setup, so it's okay to be at the very bottom of the bag. Next in line would be our pulley system. On top of that should go the tensioning side spanset. Next would be the tensioning side tree protection.

So far we have the complete tensioning side anchor gear in the bag in the exact order that we will need them. When we approach the tensioning side, the first thing we will need is the tree protection, which is right on top as planned. Following that would be the spanset, then pulley system. Perfect! Let's move on to the rest of the setup.

So, the next thing in our list of needed gear will be our Slackline Webbing. This will be needed once we have built our static side anchor, so it goes in the bag next. Following that comes the static side spanset, followed by the static side tree pro.

Now we have the full kit in our bag in the exact order that we will need them for rigging. This whole pre-rigging process shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, but it will save you up to an hour of fiddling with the gear in order to get your line up. Super awesome!

Summary

Rigging can be quite the process if you are not prepared. But, if you take the right steps ahead of time, you can save yourself hours of messing with gear and spend more time slacking!