Tribe plans glass-bottomed walkway over Grand Canyon

[NVMojo]

August 24, 2005

PHOENIX - Tourists soon should be able to glimpse the Grand Canyon's floor through a glass-bottomed walkway jutting 70 feet from the South Rim.

The horseshoe-shaped skywalk, scheduled to open in January, is part of the Hualapai Tribe's $40 million efforts to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land into tourist operations that someday could include a high-end resort, golf course and campgrounds.

The destination, known as Grand Canyon West, also will feature an Indian village and Western-themed town, which are scheduled to open Sept. 1.

Visitors to the skywalk will pay $25 for a bird's-eye view of the canyon below.

The skywalk could help double the number of visitors to Grand Canyon West to 500,000 a year, said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive officer of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., a tribal-owned company that oversees the project.

more

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2005/08/24/build/nation/80-canyon.inc

[Raster]

1. the Skywalk: also known as Vertigo-a-go-go

[patdem]

5. Yes..very funny..I get dizzy walking down a stairway...vertigo for sure

I think I would be forced to jump .. just because I whould have to!

[Raster]

16. can you imagine the cleaning bills for the Pukewalk...er, I mean Skywalk

[IbeaBonehead]

22. The S#&% Your Pants Walk

The Stain Your Shorts Walk

I could go on but I wont..

[medeak]

2. no insurance company?

Jin calls the skywalk "very safe" but said an insurance company has yet to sign on.

[NVMojo]

7. I won't be going on it!!

[clydefrand]

3. They'd better have barf bags every few feet! I took a couple of steps

on a short glass walkway at the top of a tower in New Zealand. Wow! the stomach and eyes didn't see eye to eye or eye to stomach, maybe. I can't imagine walking on a glass bridge over the Grand Canyon.

[GregW]

4. I guess we'll then get a view of their casino ...

... far down below on the floor of the canyon?

:sarcasm:

[NVMojo]

8. I think there is one there! Yer right!

PS
That is a really gross picture of GW ....bleeh!!!!! Bungieboy!

[Tin Man]

6. I've heard the term "glass ceiling"

...but "glass floor" is a new one!

[Baconfoot]

9. I'm scared just reading about it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NT

[bushisanidiot]

10. Sounds like trouble waiting to happen

and there'll be a thousand jokes about it afterward.

[rrrevolution]

11. Well, it beats gambling as a way to raise money

eom

[Robeson]

12. Eeeek! Makes my hands sweat just thinking about it...

...:scared:

[Teaser]

13. Yes, let's improve on perfection.

This will be classy. I guarantee it. 100% pure highbrow.

I think there should be concession stands on the walkway too.

[Joseph Christ]

14. There is no way I would go on that...

...A number of years ago I went to a club in Jersey where they had the inside pool covered in a glass cover that people were dancing on. (They basically converted this small hotel to a club for Thanksgiving weekend.) Well I turned to my friend and told him "I bet that things going to break, I'm not going anywhere near it. Everything was ok that night but the very next year, when they were throwing the same thing, the glass broke sending all the dancers into the pool.

A number of people were hurt from cuts and the place went into a rare form of pandemonium that only Jersey can provide.

[Flavin]

15. for 50$ you can

sit under the walkway and look up skirts....

Flavin

[gratuitous]

17. I'd go on it

But it appears I'm in a very small minority.

[MadHound]

18. Gee, I wonder

How many birds and other avian creatures are going to crash into this monstrosity and die? "Look at the pretty bird Bobby!" *SPLAT* "Sniff, sniff, Moooommmyyy!"

Yeah this is going to go over *real* well. And they can't even get an insurance company to touch it? Why can't they just leave well enough alone?:banghead:

[tinfoilinfor2005]

19. No way Jose'...

Doesn't the tower in Toronto have a glass floor at the top?

[KittyWampus]

20. Now THAT's Using Their Imagination. I Respect This A Lot

[Redstone]

21. Yet another Indian tribe exhibiting its traditional respect for the Earth.

I am goddamn sick of the persistence of the myth that ALL Indians are "in tune with Nature," blah blah blah.

Plenty of them are (such as the Dineh), probably even the majority, but there are FAR too many like thes clowns and the Scaghticokes here in New England who just can' WAIT to "respect the land" by covering it with casinos and parking lots and toxic golf courses.

Feh.

Redstone

PS: Before you flame, be advised that I'm an Indian.

[hyphenate]

23. My brother's company has been working on it

He and my sister in law are going to a special function to see it. Though my SIL won't go on it--she's got vertigo. It can't be any worse than looking down through the transparent floor at the CN Tower in Toronto. It was a bit scary the first time I did it, but after that, it was a piece of cake.

[WinkyDink]

24. Yeah, I MIGHT

walk across that. NOT!!!!!!!!!!

[Adrian Luca]

25. How tasteful

Sort of reminds me of the time plans were drawn up to build a monorail right to the base of Ayer's Rock in Australia...a well-known newspaper cartoonist drew a ferris wheel on the top of the rock and the idea sort of died right there.