Highline festival held in remote canyon near Lolo

With the East Fork of Lolo Creek gurgling hundreds of feet below, a group of ecstatic slackliners carefully traversed inch-wide webbing spanning a canyon in the forest a couple miles away from Lolo Hot Springs on Friday morning.

Tim Hopp, 29, of Missoula walks a highline set up at the Lolo/Montana Highline Festival near the top of Lolo Pass on Sept. 8. The fourth-annual event is the brainchild of 33-year-old Missoulian Griffen Gilbert and attracts participants from around Montana and the West.

JOSHUA MURDOCK, MISSOULIAN

With eight highlines stretched across various gaps, one of which hung 985 feet long and 250 feet up in the air, at least a dozen aerialists spent the morning focusing on the sport they love.

The Lolo/Montana Highline Festival began in 2019. Organizers took a year off during the pandemic, but every year since then it has attracted some of the best highliners in the country.

Slackliners Spencer Bluefoot, 30, of Gallatin Gateway, left, and Tim Hopp, right, walk on two highlines strung

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