The King of the High Wire has done it again. 34-year old Nik Wallenda successfully completed a 20-minute walk from one side of the 1,500 ft deep Grand Canyon to the other. In doing so he became the first person to walk a tightrope over the “Grand Canyon” in what was billed as a life or death stunt.
The view below Nik Wallenda’s feet
One can quibble over details. The place where Wallenda made the crossing was technically not the Grand Canyon per se but the Little Colorado Gorge in the Little Colorado River Navajo Tribal Park near Cameron, Arizona. But this technicality was a necessity as “The event would not have been approved in Grand Canyon National Park,” said Maureen Oltrogge, the park’s public affairs officer.
The 2-inch thick steel cable was strung from one side of the gorge to the other – a distance of 1,400 ft or the equivalent of 5 football fields. Wallenda walked it with no safety harness or safety net – truly a death defying act. And the eyes of the world were on him too as Discovery Channel were filming the 22-minute, 54-second endeavour.
“I did it,” he said on Discovery Channel, tears running down his face just moments after getting off the wire. Asked how he was feeling, he replied, “Emotional”. Then he asked for some water.
“It was way more windy [than expected], and the movement of the cable, the sidewalls, as I was walking, were getting in the way and were confusing me as the pendulums were swinging against them. So I tried to react and when I react, I take the rhythm into the cable. It took every bit of me to stay focused that entire time. My arms are aching like you’d never believe.”
Wallenda already holds six Guinness World Records for various high-wire and acrobatic feats.
Florida aerialist Nik Wallenda completes quarter mile tightrope walk near the Grand Canyon
I will bring you new videos as soon as possible, but this is all that is available at the moment. However, I want you to see how he completes the walk at a run! Amazing. Hats off to you Nik Wallenda!
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