Posted on 08/26/2005 1:33:08 PM PDT by AntiGuv
PHOENIX - Great views — and plenty of goosebumps for those afraid of heights.
An American Indian tribe with land along the Grand Canyon is planning to build a glass-bottomed walkway that will jut out 70 feet from the canyon's edge.
The horseshoe-shaped skywalk, expected to open in January, is part of the Hualapai Tribe's $40 million effort to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land into a tourist destination that will also feature an Indian village and Western-themed town.
The tribe's reservation is some 200 miles by road to the west of the section of the Grand Canyon National Park that most tourists visit.
The walkway, with a glass bottom and sides, will be supported by steel beams and will accommodate 120 people, though it is designed to hold 72 million pounds, said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive officer of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., the tribal-owned company that is overseeing the project.
"You're basically looking 4,000 feet down. It's a whole new way to experience the Grand Canyon," Yellowhawk said.
Admission will be $25.
The project is still seeking an insurer, said architect David Jin, who said he came up with the skywalk idea while visiting the canyon in 1996.
At 160 lbs each, that would be 450,000 people.
Not likely. Perhaps that is the rating of the walkway when it is laying on the ground!
Reminds me of my visit to the CN Tower in Toronto. Stepping out on the glass block floors with nothing but air and the ground beneath them was a bit odd at first.
$25 for that?
Sounds fun -- if I get to check out the engineering on it first. I don't want to be anywhere near another walkway collapse situation.
I have stood there, not too close to the edge because there was a breeze, and looked down into however many geologic aeons are presented to the eye. If anybody walks out on this and lives, please write a short report about the experience.
Anyway, up at the top they have a railing and you can go peek over the edge. My fingerprints are probably permanently embedded into the rail. I also noticed the USGS or someone had a survey marker by the rail too, so I reckon they’re keeping an eye on whether it’s staying put.
Total Rush!
/me tosses a banana peel out there near the edge ;>
The slits between the planks in the the Royal Gorge Bridge almost did me in. I'm not sure I could even get on this one. But the idea sounds nice.
At 160 lbs each, that would be 450,000 people.
No. Havent you heard that we have an obesity epidemic?
I hope they worked in additional staff to assist with the many tourists who pass out cold or are paralyzed with fear.
I may be one of 'em.
Good Lord----not in a million years for me.I cannot even imagine it.
Yeah, I tripped over the 72 million # figure too. Without doing any math or analysis at all, this sounds like a 'way out there' number...
tacky
I would most certainly wet myself, on the occasion that I was forced onto the platform at gunpoint.
There are not nearly enough parking spaces, the NPS prefering to merely jam people into buses like you were in New York City. But this isn't because there isn't enough room.
The rim is huge. It's something like 200 miles long. You could streatch a city of hundreds of thousands with everyone having a canyon view from their balcony. And having hiked the canyon to the bottom, I can tell you that as long as you had reasonable sized buildings along it, you'd never even see them from the bottom. The canyon is THAT big.
I think they should close the National Park, and sell the land to private owners with some reasonable deed restrictions. Let people build their own hotels and houses. If they think the Canyon brings in tourists now, watch what would happen if they get rid of the 30's era socialist government mentality on the rim and open up a wee bit of capitalisim.
The canyon is made of solid rock, and has withstood fires, floods, storms, and even a volcano, for millions of years. People aren't going to "hurt" it, or "destroy" it. So lets take it away from government so we can really enjoy it.
Like your tag line. Friend who knows MK gave my son some cool stuff. Now he is hooked on auto racing.
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