Video: Grand Opening of the Skywalk
Grand Canyon Skywalk
Grand Canyon West, Arizona
The Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped glass bridge sticking out 4,000 feet above the bottom of the Grand Canyon, opened to the press and special guests on March 20, 2007. We managed to get out there for the event, armed with a video camera to capture the moment when Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin took the "First Walk" on the specially engineered glass surface and met the Hualapai tribe that owns it.
We figured this would be about as close as we'd ever get to walking on the moon -- but apparently so did about 300 other journalists and TV crews.
At times, heavy winds blasted dust into clusters of television crews and their expensive equipment (In this video frame, left, during a gust of dusty wind, a news anchor's jacket eerily gestures from a camera tripod towards the Skywalk).
Many attempted to describe the sensory experience on the Skywalk, but frankly, we were sensory-hosed by the time scores of reporters got on the bridge and the security guards started to panic...
Our suspicion is that the media was invited to provide this final and ultimate load test on the structure before it opened to the public on March 28th.
No cracks, no shattering, no 4,000 ft. plummet to certain death. The Skywalk passed with flying colors.