Rae Raptor in colorful pants and a blue hat walking on a pink leash through a field of tall yellow grass with trees in fall foliage in the background, under a clear sky.
Rae Raptor wearing an orange t-shirt and black shorts walking on a tightrope stretched across a rocky canyon with mountain scenery in the background and a clear blue sky.

Rae’s path to becoming the oldest woman highliner is as dynamic as the slackline under her feet…

Rae Raptor standing in a barren desert landscape with her arms outstretched. She wears a gray jacket, colorful leggings, and a beanie. There are mountain ranges in the distance and a clear blue sky overhead.
Rae Raptor practicing yoga in a seated meditation pose with hands pressed together in front of her chest, set against a desert landscape featuring large, textured white rock formations and a clear blue sky.

Rae's Story

A retired English professor, Rae Raptor is one of the world’s oldest highliners and a pioneer of more than twenty-five new highlines on three continents. She is the author of Step by Step: A Memoir of Aging, Fear, and Finding Faith 300 Feet Off the Ground and speaks on reinvention, aging, balance, fear, and faith through the lens of highlining.

Rae’s two lifelong loves are reading and nature, and much of her life has been an attempt to integrate the two.

Rae Raptor standing on a flat, cracked desert landscape with arms outstretched, facing a sunset over mountains and a partly cloudy sky.

Concerned about the environment, Rae studied the sciences in college until the day she caught herself reading a novel instead of preparing for her biochemistry final. In her senior year at UC Davis, she switched majors to English.

After a 3,000-mile bicycle trip through the Rocky Mountains, Rae followed a boyfriend to Gunnison, Colorado, where she considered various vocations—waitress, window washer, freelance writer. English professor seemed like the best fit.

Toward that end, she earned an MA at Western Colorado University in Gunnison before pursuing a PhD at Cornell in upstate New York. While at Cornell, she joined forces with other scholars exploring the relationship between culture and nature.

Rae Raptor smiling and hugging a large tree with rough bark and green leaves, standing on a grassy area outside a building.
Rae Raptor is holding a beer bottle and there is a plate of food with salad, rice, and grilled vegetables in front of her. The background features a wooden wall and framed pictures.

In 1990, Rae (then Cheryll) was hired by the University of Nevada, Reno to be the nation’s first professor of Literature and Environment. Within months of moving to Reno, she met Steve Glotfelty in a climbing gym, fell in love, and got married.

Rae Raptor with blonde hair smiling, standing in front of a bookshelf filled with various books.

Cheryll Glotfelty co-founded the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and published and spoke widely in the emerging field of Environmental Humanities. Her love of teaching was reflected in many awards, including CASE-Carnegie Nevada Teacher of the Year.

All the while, she and Steve were rock climbing and exploring backcountry Nevada.

Step by step, slacklining became her passion. Smitten, she aspired to highline—slacklining at dizzying heights, over gorges and canyons. At this time, she adopted the alter-ego “Rae Raptor” in a bid to become bolder and braver.

What began as a search for balance and self-mastery eventually exposed a spiritual hunger. Her lifetime of striving had been for what?  After some missteps, she turned to Jesus Christ and learned to anchor her identity in God’s love rather than in her achievements.

At sixty, Professor Glotfelty retired and took up slacklining to maintain balance in older age.

Rae Raptor walking on a highline between two rocky cliffs during daytime, with the sun shining brightly in the sky and creating lens flare.

Thus began a new adventure that continues to this day.

Rae Raptor walking on a highline over the water with mountains in the background. 
Rae Today

Rae and Steve live at Scorpion Acres in the desert north of Reno. They have one married daughter, Rosa, and a grandson, Walker.

They share quarters with a donkey and a horse, two cats, and some goldfish.

At 68, she still slacklines.