Video: Exciting Unpaved Drive to the Skywalk
Grand Canyon Skywalk
Grand Canyon West, Arizona
The Hualapai Nation has a challenge. They'd accomplished their engineering feat of hanging the $25mm glass Skywalk 4,000 feet above the floor of the Grand Canyon. How will they entice visitors to try it out? March 2007's Grand Opening media blitz was effective; anyone we spoke to later around the U.S. recalled seeing the Skywalk on TV or in the papers. But they were still curious. What was it like?
One feature of the new attraction that didn't get as much attention: the hideous unpaved roads connecting Grand Canyon West with the rest of the world. Parts of the best road, a 14-mile-long dirt two-laner, was said to be almost impassible in rain; in dry weather, it's really bumpy, dusty, and offers occasional boulder surprises.
This video assembles a few excerpts of our entertaining pilgrimage to the Skywalk (in the interim, the road has been improved).
You can skip the drive and go straight to the Skywalk Grand Opening video.