Most people would be nervous walking a tightrope between two chairs. Florian Zoller walked one strung between two moving cable car cabins, nearly 500 feet above the Austrian Alps.

  • 144 meters (about 472 feet) — the length of the highline
  • 150 meters (roughly 492 feet) — maximum height above the ground
  • 15 minutes, 30 seconds — total crossing time
  • 25 millimeters — the width of the webbing he balanced on
  • 65 meters — the previous world record, more than doubled by this crossing

The setup

The stunt took place at the Gurgl ski resort in Austria's Tyrol region, where Zoller rigged a highline — a wide, flat length of webbing used for high-altitude slacklining — between two gondola cabins on an active cable car line. Rather than two fixed anchor points, his line was tethered to cabins that could sway and shift as the cable system moved, adding a layer of instability that fixed highlines don't have.

At 144 meters long, the line more than doubled the previous world record of 65 meters for a highline rigged between two cable cars, according to coverage from Unofficial Networks. Zoller crossed the full distance in 15 minutes and 30 seconds, balanced the entire way on webbing just 25 millimeters wide — roughly the width of a thumb.

Why the gondola rig changes the risk

Highlining between two mountains or two cliffs is dangerous enough on its own. Rigging a line between two gondola cabins introduces motion that a fixed anchor point never has: cabins can rock, cables can flex, and tension across the line shifts constantly as both ends move independently.

That instability is exactly what makes the format so technically demanding for slackline athletes, and why doubling the previous distance record is being treated as a significant leap rather than an incremental one.

The crossing took Florian Zoller to roughly 150 meters above the ground, walking a 25-millimeter line suspended between two points that were never fully still.

Detailed technical specs of the rig — line length, height, and timing — were documented by French slacklining outlet Adrex, which covers highline and extreme-sport record attempts across Europe.

A niche sport pushing its own limits

Highlining has grown over the past decade from a fringe offshoot of rock climbing into a discipline with its own record-keeping bodies, sponsorships, and international competitions. Records are typically measured by combinations of length, height, and difficulty of rigging, since a short line over a canyon and a long line between swaying cable cars demand entirely different skill sets.

Zoller's crossing adds a new benchmark to the "mobile anchor" category of highlining, where at least one end of the line is attached to something that moves. It's a tougher problem to solve mechanically and mentally, since the walker has to adjust constantly to tension changes rather than relying on a stable, unmoving line.

For a sport built almost entirely on calculated risk and painstaking preparation, a record like this one — set in full view of a ski resort, 500 feet up, on a line attached to machinery still running on schedule — is the kind of feat that tends to ripple through the small, tight-knit highlining community for years.