The hike is full of serious hikers, serious about hiking, with serious shoes and serious faces. Two minutes in the company of Lewis, and his wacky hat, however and the mood has completely changed. Unsurprisingly, a man who could easily die tomorrow doing the sport he loves likes to live in the moment and not take things too seriously.

“I like to have as much fun as I possibly can,” and “Living is the best part of life,” he tells us at various points during the day. The concrete faces of the hiking-enthusiasts are no match for this positivity and so they melt away, replaced by childlike grins.

Lewis poses for selfies, and acts the court jester, before we’re all given our briefing for the day’s activities and get herded into one of the numerous minivans parked up outside. We head up to the gloriously snowy start point, exit the vehicles accordingly, and start hiking. There’s a crowd gathered around Lewis from the get-go.

“I was always into sport, but I was never really the biggest kid. It took a long time for puberty to kick in. I don’t know when your balls dropped, or when you guys started shaving but for me it took until I was about 23. I was the only person in high school without armpit hair. I was like, for sure, a loser. I didn’t have my first girlfriend until I got to college, so I was like way behind the scene. Like so far behind the scene, it wasn’t even funny,” says Lewis while smiling at the implausibility of his transformation from teenage nerd to superhero.

“I felt like I could be myself through my characters more than I could ever be myself in real life.”

“It’s around that time, I got more and more into climbing,” continues Lewis, “When I was really into videogames, and computer programming, and learning how to be online, and having my own character; I felt like I could be myself through my characters more than I could ever be myself in real life.”

“I don’t think I realised before how much of my life I was wasting. I was just spending so much time on the computer. But after I learned to slackline, I was just going out a lot more. I was seeing so many beautiful places. Like, I’d always loved climbing up rocks and trees but used to cut that short for video games. Slacklining changed that, it changed me.”

Lewis wraps things up by cracking a few more jokes, answering a few questions, and posing for a few more photographs. Much to the group’s disappointment, he won’t be joining us for the final leg of the hike. His inappropriate footwear seems to have got the better of him. He apologises to everyone in the group, wishes us luck on the rest of our mountain adventure, and says he’ll catch up with us later.

The next time we see him, Lewis is up on stage in front of a packed out conference hall of South Tyrol locals, mountaineering enthusiasts, and adventure journalists. He’s the big headline act for the evening, and there’s a palpable sense in the room that this frizzy-haired slackliner from the States is going to serve up something different from what’s gone before.

There are more than a few technical difficulties with the laptop connection, but Andy’s bizarrely watchable presence means the audience’s confused sense of intrigue remains constant. They don’t know what’s coming, nobody does – possibly not even Andy, but it’s unstructured fun and that, you sense, is precisely how Sketchy likes it.

“So, as you can see, that’s my PornHub tab,” says Lewis, nonchalantly hovering his mouse over the infamously recognisable logo, while searching for one of his slackline videos.

Some people laugh, some people furrow their brow.

“Come on guys! We all watch it!” continues Lewis.

Those who were laughing before, laugh harder. Those who weren’t, join in. Lewis seems to be the type of public speaker who’ll drag you along for the ride whether you’re up on the wagon or not. Here’s a man who enjoys lightening the mood; someone who wants to make people feel as alive as he does when he’s slacklining over canyons in Utah or jumping off casinos in Las Vegas.

“I should say now that if you’re offended by full-frontal nudity or criminal activities, you probably shouldn’t watch what I’m about to show you. In fact, thinking about it, I probably shouldn’t show you what I’m about to show you,” says Lewis before clicking on a video of him slacklining in the nude. The screen behind him is absolutely enormous and, as a result, his genitals appear to be roughly the same size as a Vespa scooter.

The conservative and reserved locals of South Tyrol don’t know what’s hit them. Hands over mouths, hands over eyes, howls of laughter; Andy Lewis has brought some shock and awe tactics to the party and the International Mountain Summit attendees are lapping it up like a bunch of thirsty puppies.

Lewis is excellent at telling stories. Although, one could argue that being a really great storyteller is a hell of a lot easier when your day-to-day comings and goings are so utterly outlandish that they’re effectively unrecognisable to the average Joe working nine-to-five. Most people, of course, want to be surprised by the anecdotes they’re told and Lewis is packing so many of those up his sleeves that you’re half expecting his t-shirt arms to rip under the weight of all those stored-up surprises.

“If Madonna wants Andy Lewis to be her tightrope bitch, it’s going to cost her.”

He discusses what it was like to slackline for Madonna during her Super Bowl halftime show in 2012. A performance that, in the US alone, had viewing figures of approximately 111.3 million. Madonna, he reveals, offered him one million dollars to join her on her world tour but he turned her down because he didn’t want to give up his adventurous lifestyle and become, as he put it, Madonna’s “…tightrope bitch.”

More laughter from the audience, but the inspirational message is unmistakable. Live your life on your own terms, not on someone else’s. Three weeks after Madonna, Lewis went to the southern islands of Thailand for a month where he, you guessed it, spent the majority of his time climbing, slacklining, and BASE jumping. 

In the case of Andy Lewis, a man who knows that either himself or one of his close friends could die at any time while BASE jumping, I guess it’s easier to handle death if you never get too attached to people, places, or locations. But as I leave town the next morning I find myself thinking, are those of us who don’t risk death on a daily basis really any better at forming relationships?

I’ve very much enjoyed my time in South Tyrol, and the day I’ve spent in the company of Sketchy Andy Lewis. I’ve discovered the origins of a professional daredevil, and developed a greater awareness of slacklining and the man who’s evolved it to the place where it’s at today. Perhaps most importantly, and rather surprisingly, I’ve learned that Madonna doesn’t always get what she wants.

Here’s to Andy, an eccentric innovator and true original.

For more on origins, check out the Mpora Origins Issue.

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