Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin took the ceremonial first step on Tuesday onto a glass-bottomed walkway overhanging the Grand Canyon that backers hope will lure tourists to the remote west rim.A private developer from Las Vegas built the $40 million (20.4 million pounds) horseshoe-shaped walkway, called the Skywalk, with the permission of the Hualapai tribe, whose ancestral lands abut the southwest rim of the canyon in Arizona.
The steel pathway, which is paved with 90 tons of toughened glass, is cantilevered 70-feet (21 meters) out over the lip to give steel-nerved visitors a dizzying glimpse of the Colorado River Valley nearly a mile (1.6 km) below.
The project has stirred controversy on the Hualapai Reservation, where backers say it will create valuable jobs but opponents condemn it as a desecration of a sacred landscape.
Aldrin, 77, strode out onto the transparent pathway, waving to a crowd of about 1,000 tourists, dignitaries and tribal members, to meet a group of Hualapai elders and children in the centre coming from the other direction.
there is no way in hell you could get me on that thing..it makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it...arghghghghgh
ReplyDeleteMe either !I had to have beer before i went on the London eye ffs
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