Yesterday aerial acrobat Nick Wallenda performed a death-defying tightrope walk over a Grand Canyon gorge, becoming the first person ever to complete the stunt. Wallenda’s high-wire promenade took place above the Little Colorado River in Arizona upon a 2-inch wide (5-cm) steel cable spanned 1,400 feet long. Last year, Wallenda became the first person to span Niagara Falls, adding to his current and impressive seven Guinness World Records.
Broadcast internationally over the Discovery Channel, Wallenda endured random gusts of wind for 22-minutes praying audibly for near the feat’s entirety. While carrying a 43 lb balancing pole, he only stopped twice and crouch along the cable, once to wait out a particularly strong breeze and the other to wait out an unsettling rhythm picked up on the wire, according to Reuters.
Check out the entire Nik Wallenda Grand Canyon ‘Skywire’ Tightrope walk here:
Wallenda was rigged to two cameras, one facing the flowing Little Colorado River 1,500 feet below with the other facing forward giving the 217-country global audience the same perspective of the stuntman himself.
A seventh-generation member of the high-flying daredevil troupe “The Flying Wallendas,” the highly esteemed aerialist rose to prominence by following in the footsteps of his family being part of the world’s first eight-person high-wire pyramid, then branching off on his own by completing the highest bicycle ride on a high-wire 250-foot long at 135 feet above New Jersey–which he performed again at double the height two years later–joining his mother for a tightrope walk between the two towers of Condado Plaza Hotel in Puerto Rico, and dangling 250 ft from a helicopter by nothing but his teeth.. The Peuro Rico act was a recreation of the one that claimed the life of his great-grandfather in 1978 during which he slipped and fell to his death due to misconnected guide ropes and not windy conditions.
Wallenda told reporters that he he’s hoping his next stunt is a similar high-wire act spanning the distance between New York City’s Chrysler building and Empire State building, a feat he’s dreamed of since his childhood. But, as noted by the Huffington Post, he said he would give up tightrope walking altogether if his wife and children ever asked him.
