Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the last few feet of a steel and glass skywalk was rolled out over the southwest rim of the Grand Canyon, a 2-million-pound engineering marvel that the Hualapai Indians hope will boost tourism to their remote ancestral land and provide the impoverished tribe with a desperately needed economic boost.
With sage burning and tribal members playing gourds, spiritual leader Emmett Bender blessed the cantilevered horseshoe-shaped skywalk, which will jut out 70 feet from the canyon rim and dangle 4,000 feet above the canyon floor. He called the structure “the white man’s idea.”
. . .Three years in the making and topping $30 million in cost, the 30,000-square-foot skywalk, which will open March 28, will allow 120 visitors at a time to walk out over the canyon rim to look at the gorge through glass walls and through a glass floor at the bottom of the canyon, nearly four-fifths of a mile below.
NewMexiKen gets nervous looking over the railing from Jill’s landing into her family room.