Skywalk is a 500-ton U-shaped steel-and-glass walkway that juts 70 feet over the edge of the Grand Canyon, which drops along sheer cliff faces for 4,000 feet to the Colorado River below.
Here are the facts and figures.
The structure is constructed from more than a million pounds of steel beams. Built-in dampeners (giant shock absorbers) minimize vibration from earthquakes; they’ll also prevent the structure from quivering under the weight of visitors.
The support arch for the 10-foot-wide walkway is made of two-inch-thick steel plates. The walkway has a see-through glass bottom and sides; five layers of tempered floor glass are nearly four inches thick and weigh 90 tons. Massive anchors made from 84 rods of high-strength steel, embedded nearly 46 feet into the bedrock, hold the structure over the canyon. Skywalk is designed to withstand 100-mph winds coming from all directions and an 8.0 magnitude earthquake 50 miles away, and can hold 72 millions pounds.
Though Skywalk is limited to 120 people at any given time, it can support 100 pounds per square foot (the equivalent of 800 people weighing 200 pounds each). Visitors wear special booties to keep from scratching the glass or slipping on it.
The project took two years to complete and is the latest in a series of attractions, such as Old West-style villages and a variety of tours, at Grand Canyon West, a 9,000-acre development in a remote 100-mile stretch of the canyon's South Rim, 120 southeast of Las Vegas. Ground will soon be broken on a 6,000-square-foot visitors center and restaurant.
Also planned are hotels, restaurants, and a golf course, all aimed at raising revenues for the Hualapai Tribe and providing employment for its 2,000 impoverished members.
Still, some Hualapai resent the Skywalk; they say it was built on sacred ground overlooking spectacular Eagle Point. Environmentalists, similarly, take issue with erecting such a "conspicuously commercial edifice in the Grand Canyon, tantamount to defacing a national treasure."
Tribal leaders, however, insist that they’ve spent nearly three year assessing and addressing the cultural, biological, and community impacts of Skywalk and that it will sustain the tribe in the long term.
Regardless of who feels what about it, to see it, drive 46 miles south of Hoover Dam on US 93 and take the left turnoff to Dolan Springs, then continue another 30 miles to Hualapai Valley Joshua Trees. From there, it’s 14 miles on a dirt road to the Quartermaster Viewpoint and Skywalk.
It’ll cost you $28 admission into Grand Canyon West, then another $25 to step out onto the platform.
Photographs appear courtesy of Grand Canyon West and PR Newswire Photo Service.
