Tribe set to open Grand Canyon Skywalk ($30M tourist overlook to provide 4,000 foot perspective)

The Sierra Times / AP ^ | March 16 | CHRIS KAHN

[Stoat]

An Internet Publication for Real Americans
From The News Wire

Tribe set to open Grand Canyon Skywalk
Posted: Tuesday March 20,2007 - 12:14:55 am

By CHRIS KAHN, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes ago

HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. - Visitors who have marveled at the Grand Canyon's vistas will now have a dizzying new option: a glass-bottom observation deck allowing them to gaze into the chasm beneath their feet.

The Skywalk, which will be unveiled Tuesday, is being touted as an engineering marvel. The glass-and-steel horseshoe extends 70 feet beyond the canyon's edge with no visible supports above or below.

For $25 plus other fees, people will be able to see 4,000 feet straight down to the canyon floor, a vantage point more than twice as high as the world's tallest buildings.

Hualapai Indians, who live near the rim about 90 miles west of the national park, allowed a Las Vegas developer to build the $30 million Skywalk in hopes of creating a unique attraction on their side of the canyon.

Tribal leaders are betting that people will flock here, braving the rugged terrain — including a twisty ride through unpaved roads — to walk its transparent surface. The Skywalk, they hope, will become the centerpiece of a budding tourism industry that includes helicopter tours, river rafting, a cowboy town and a museum of Indian replica homes.

It's scheduled to open to the public on March 28.

The Skywalk has sparked debate on and off the reservation. Many Hualapai (pronounced WALL-uh-pie) worry about disturbing nearby burial sites, and environmentalists have blamed the tribe for transforming the majestic canyon into a tourist trap.

Hualapai leaders say they weighed those concerns for years before agreeing to build the Skywalk. With a third of the tribe's 2,200 members living in poverty, the tribal government decided it needs the tourism dollars.

"When we have so much poverty and so much unemployment, we have to do something," said Sheri Yellowhawk, a former tribal councilwoman overseeing the project. "It sounded like a good idea."

Las Vegas businessman David Jin fronted the money to build the Skywalk. Yellowhawk said Jin will give it to the Hualapai in exchange for a cut of the profits.

Construction crews spent two years building the Skywalk. They drilled steel anchors 46 feet into the limestone rim to hold the deck in place. Earlier this month, they welded the Skywalk to the anchors after pushing it past the edge using four tractor trailers and an elaborate system of pulleys.

Architect Mark Johnson said the Skywalk will support the weight of a few hundred people and withstand canyon winds of 100 mph. The observation deck has been embedded with shock absorbers to keep it from wobbling like a diving board as people walk on it.

Hualapai leaders were to be the first to set foot on the Skywalk on Tuesday. They've hired former astronauts Buzz Aldrin and John Herrington to join them. The astronauts were expected to help christen the deck during a brief ceremony.

Herrington was chosen in part because he's a registered Chickasaw Indian. Aldrin said he agreed to attend after reading about the project. And, as the Apollo 11 astronaut famous for walking on the moon, Aldrin said he has no fear of heights.

[A knight without armor]

Hah. Great minds think alike. My reaction is it won't take long for extreme adventurers to bungee or hang glide or where they jump off a ledge and then pull a parachute. They probably won't die or even be injured but still it will be a magnet for these thrill seekers.

Me, I would not need to walk on this platform. I'd be awed so much standing on the ground where the plain tourists go.

[2Jedismom]

There's a place in Minnesota like that...called Palisade Head. My husband grew up near there and he's taken me there on more than one occasion.

It's scares the willies out of me.

But there's some great wild blueberries up there.

[Lil'freeper]

I could see the possibility of panic attacks all around.

LOL --- *all* around.

I might go once just to see. The foreign tourists will eat this up. I just hope they don't try to jump the barriers like they do everywhere else.

[Lil'freeper]

OTOH, there are plenty of places where you can look straight down, and see the solid rock you're standing on.

Yeah, those are called the trails.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Yeah, when Rose first showed me the picture of that thing, my actual response was, "Ohh, h*ll no!

[guppas]

"Who cleans the bottom of the glass?"

Let me tell you, if I had been out there you wouldn't want to be cleaning the top of the glass!

[fatnotlazy]

Quite a few of those planes (and some helicopters) crashed into the canyon. I'm no engineer but has something to do with a downdraft. Anyhow, a couple of years after I took the plane ride, one of them crashed. The companies would start these excursions, then quit when there was a crash, then start up again, then quit after another crash, etc. etc. I sure hope they don't do these flights anymore.

[SuziQ]

my actual response was, "Ohh, h*ll no!

LOL!! If it didn't stick out over the Canyon quite so far, I might be persuaded to go out on it. The view is probably just stuning, and like another poster said, would be safer than standing on an edge, in the wind, protected by nothing more than a low railing.

I do like the design of the structure; looks very Anasazi.

[ryan71]

Like when the slug things wrapped that guy up and devoured him?

Sorry.

[Cruising Speed]

It also includes dampeners that minimize the structure's vibration.

What's this...they're going to put water on it? Perhaps they included dampers instead...

[ryan71]

Oh, you mean the shots at the empire state building.

[robertpaulsen]

"I dunno....some of those US Navy carrier pilots are AWFULLY good :-)"

"Ah...sir...ah, if if the pilot's good, see. I mean, if he's really... sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low ... you oughta see it sometime, it's a sight. A BIG plane, like a '52, vroom! Its jet exhaust, fryin' chickens in the barnyard!"

[Stoat]

LMAO

Thanks; brings back great memories!  I think that I even have that in the stoat film collection somewhere.....

I think that all FReepers should take note of the contents of the survival pack that Slim Pickens inventories in the movie and keep at least one in their FReepMobiles at all times   :-)

[Stoat]

I found this list from the film online, and it seems accurate to my fuzzy memory:

“Survival kit contents, check,” says Major Kong in the film Dr. Strangelove, as he pulls items from a metal box. “One .45-caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days’ concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; $100 in rubles; $100 in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.”

[GATOR NAVY]

I didn't realize that. I just remember it being a really thrilling ride. The pilot came in real low so you couldn't see the canyon ahead and then Pow! the bottom just dropped out from under you as you went over the edge and he dropped down inside. I was probably 13 or 14 years old.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

This phony nation within a nation BS has to stop.

Amen!

[DeerfieldObserver]

You Go...

PRICE: Visitors must pay anywhere from $74.95 to $199 to walk on the Skywalk, depending on what other activities they do. (The tribe advertises a $49.95 rate on its Web site, but that just let's you "view" the Skywalk, not walk on it.)

The Hualapai also offer Hummer tours and helicopter trips, a museum of Indian houses and a cowboy town. You also can take a ride to another part of the canyon called Guano Point, where a hiking path will take you over a thin strip of land with cliffs on either side.

[DeerfieldObserver]

At $75-$199 a head, these Indians are still scalping the White Man. :>)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/29/america/NA-FEA-TRV-US-Grand-Canyon-Skywalk.php

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

Exactly what is the Indians' contribution here ? The skywalk was built by the "white man" and a lot of the paying tourists will be "white men". So they just get to sit there and scam people because its supposedly on "their" land ?

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

When I first read about it, it said the fee was going to be $25/person to walk the skywalk. And now its mysteriously gone up to $100+ ?? I was thinking of taking a drive up there one of these weekends but now I saw f*** the Skywalk !