File Under: Vertigo

In 1996, Las Vegas businessman David Jin dreamed up the idea of "walking out over the Grand Canyon and staring 4,000 feet down into the Colorado River -- while standing on four inches of glass." On January 1, believe it or not, it will become a reality.

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Image from MRJ Architects

The horseshoe-shaped walkway that juts 70-feet out into the canyon 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."

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Image from MRJ Architects

Regardless of the questionable nature of the walkway and the theme park (ideas actually opposed by about half the tribe's elders initially), it is quite a feat of engineering. It is designed, with the help of Lochsa Engineering, to support 72 million pounds, to withstand a magnitude 8.0 earthquake centered 50 miles away, and to withstand winds in excess of 100 mph.

But will people spend $25 to feel their stomachs in their mouths? We won't know until Grand Canyon Resort Corp., the tribal-owned company that is overseeing the project, finds an insurer for the project, probably not an easy task.

(Thanks to Eric M. for the head's up)

Comments

  1. Kudos if they can pull it off, but judging from the rendering, they're missing something. I'm guessing there was some artistic license taken.

    Pedestrian cantilevers are possible if the guardrail is cleverly used as an incognito truss. But that doesn't appear to be the case here. Glass is being used like never before, but I really doubt it could be used for something this bold.

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  2. Reminds me of the glass floor in the CNTower. And, will we be able to bungee jump from it?

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  3. $! Yes, change is constant, but the elders were right in contesting this tourist attraction. Any money the tribe MAY get will never be enough to buy back our culture.

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  4. Very funny.An all glass walkway jutting out from a cliff that is rated to support the weight equivalent to 16 fully fuelled and loaded space shuttle launch vehicles.Where is the anti-gravity machine? I researched this farse and discovered that the originators were taking money for advance orders.HA HA HA.

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  5. The scenery at Toroweap, part of Grand Canyon NP and directly across the river from the Hualapai Reservation is my choice for a place where one can stand on the edge and drop a rock into the river.

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  6. i think that this is a bit of a strange idea. why would people want to stand over a mile above the canyon floor? anyway, were will they get an insurance policy. i wouldn't go over it, especially not for 25$!

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