from timesonline.co.uk;
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
A TRIBE of native Americans is preparing to build a glassbottomed walkway out over the Grand Canyon, allowing tourists to “float” over the Colorado River 4,000ft below.
The “skywalk” will extend 70ft over the canyon’s south rim in a horseshoe shape. Its glass bottom will be supported by steel beams and will comfortably carry 120 people — one hopes. It is scheduled to open in January, provided an insurance company can be found to underwrite it.
In theory, the skywalk will allow visitors to experience the vastness of the canyon in Arizona without having to take a helicopter or boat tour.
It will offer a unique view of the rock strata, which range in age from the 230-million-year-old Kaibab limestone at the top, to the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu schist at the very bottom of the inner gorge. “You’re basically looking 4,000ft down. It’s a whole new way to experience the Grand Canyon,” said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive of the corporation, which is overseeing the project.
The walkway is part of a $40 million (£22.2 million) effort by the Hualapai tribe to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land along the canyon’s south rim into a tourist destination that could include a resort, golf course and campground.
The Grand Canyon National Park — which has no control over the reservation land — has not objected, saying the skywalk will attract those who want a Las Vegas thrill while its own area will still draw those interested in nature.
The Hualapais’ destination, to be known as Grand Canyon West, will also feature an Indian village and Western-themed town, which are scheduled to open next Thursday. Visitors to the skywalk will pay $25. The Hualapais hope it will help to double the number of tourists to their area to 500,000 a year.
The reservation still has a long way to go before it can compete with the national park: about 4.3 million tourists went to the official visitors area at the south rim in 2004.
Ms Yellowhawk said her tribe, which has about 2,000 members, needed to improve the infrastructure before Grand Canyon West could grow into an important destination.
David Jin, the skywalk’s architect, insists that it will be safe, but he will build a café and patio next to it for those who bottle out at the last minute. “It’s pretty scary,” he admitted.
tragic? tragic is children fighting in wars...this is merely tourism...i personally am more annoyed by snowmobilers in Yellowstone than a sky walk in the RV world of the rim,
Not tragic, but a shame that technology and economics is once agaon intruding on the natural beauty. Novelty wears off in about 5 years, and they'll be stuck maintaining it.
Snowmobiles in Yellowstone has to be against some law, somewhere.
that grand canyon design looks kind of schlocky to me.
not quite the same thing (no glass bottom) but some norwegians architects named saunders&wilhelmsen built a nice lookout a few years back. here's a couple pics...
that glass edge would definitely be enough to make me feel uneasy
I actually saw a whole show (discovery channel kids) on this, and the engineering that is taking place/has taken place on this project is unbelievable. I mean safe does not even begin to describe it, at least from a load bearing and wind force stand point. That thing is fricken rigid as can be and then some. So the 'safeness' of it's load carrying ability is quite easily met.
now as far as some idiot trying not to commit suicide from it....well that's just another story!
I do love the work of the norwegians, and it's just "classy", whereas the skywalk is more....hmmm...less pleasing? not sure what word to use.
Surprised no one has suggested a cable sride where you clip in a slide down a line or across the canyon. Similar to the tree cable rides through the forest in Costa Rica etc.
Mind you the diaper changing station on the other side might be a bit unusual.
lol.....
indeed whistler.....but that whole zip is the worst invention they could have come up with esp in a eco system as fragile as Costa Rica's (and it pisses me off cause Im from there....don't get me started)
haha
but I do like the diaper changing station idea. They may not need it at the other end of the zip line, but rather on your return trip/walk around the horseshoe...right next to the cafe.
If the goverment would just give the indians a fair shake on the land that they have taken from the indians this project would never have to happen. I think it is sinful. Having hiked, paddled and flown over the grand canyon on a number of occassions think it is a silly project, but then again I'm not the average joe....never been to disney land or world for that matter.
indeed snook....and of course this will make the indians the money they seek to have electricity and proper sewage for their reservations as all those unsightly and overweight american families will flood the area during the summers just to see this spectacle.
Oh wait, I must be dreaming again...I was thinking that those in power (the indians who are running this) might decide not to hoard the monies made from this project and screw their own people over.
money is an interesting and destructive element in this world!
You guys are a bunch of commies. I love the great outdoors, and i've hiked many a hill in many a land and i don't really see a problem with this skywalk. It doesn't look intrusive to me at all and i think it would be quite facinating to experience the canyon that way. I've been there before and it was absolutely gorgeous and massive. I highly doubt that tiny skywalk, which from those images tries really hard to blend in, would be an eyesore of major, nature destroying proportions. That resort and tourist trap though could be another story entirely, but the walk looks pretty cool. Besides, its the indian's land and we can whine if they build something really bad yet at the end of the day we have to respect their right to build on their land.
By the way, that norwegian deal is alot classier, but i think it or something like it would be to intrusive in the context of the grand canyon.
I highly doubt that tiny skywalk, which from those images tries really hard to blend in, would be an eyesore of major, nature destroying proportions. That resort and tourist trap though could be another story entirely
, but the walk looks pretty cool.
That's the issue. The Skywalk actually looks cool and respectful. But the fact that it's intended as the catalyst for a mayor tourist trap in a one of natures greatest wonders really worries me.
That said though, I would probably never go on it since my fear of heights would probably just kill me. Maybe if it didn't have a glass bottom...
While i can think of several hundred more tragic things... Somthing about this bugs me and i can't really place it. Its not so much the skywalk... I think it has to do with the "development" of land in our national parks. The national park system as i understand it was started as an effort to preserve the sense of the american frontier, and protect the natural condition of such places, to shelter them from turning into commercialized destinations. The grand canyon is somthing to explore not to play golf next to. My capitalistic tendancies run deep but this presents a bad precedent.
Make money on camping and back country hiking permits, or tours.
"The walkway is part of a $40 million (£22.2 million) effort by the Hualapai tribe to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land along the canyon’s south rim into a tourist destination that could include a resort, golf course and campground."
Interesting idea, really bad execution. I would be less offended by the design (and other Am. tourist oriented structures) if they were just considered. This design reminds me of some of the NA casinos- many of which are horribly designed. I agree with Puddles- the Norwegian structure has elegence and sophisitcation to it.
At least give the design an aesthetic that compliments the Canyon and exposes the engineering in some way. A poorly designed structure on the rim of one of the most beatiful places on earth seems like a crime.
Lacan and Dali were friends who probably exchanged information about their intellectual journey, when Dali proposed his diagram of the inner workings of the Paranoid-Critical Method: limp, unprovable conjectures generated through the deliberate simulation of paranoiac thought processes, supported (made critical) by the 'crutches' of Cartesian rationality.
strickly speaking, the norwegians deal is kind of decorative to have the handrailing, flooring, parapet wall continues all the way down, while having a cantelever structure with glass parepet wall at the end produce the same effect.
i was curious about the structure of this thing. in the video they talk about having accounted for wind load, etc. but what they describe doesn't align with their rendering >> unless the people and doors in the visitor's center are 15' tall, there are no 32" box beams in the walkway shown in the rendering.
still curious about the stiffness of the steel hanging out over the canyon in the wind. it may cantilever fine, but i'm thinking people that DON'T get sick from the height/vertigo are going to get sick from the way this thing will bounce. remember the bridge in london (foster? rogers?) that bounced and had to be shut down?
and, of course, everybody's going to crowd the end of the horseshoe... i'm sure they've thought of that.
sorry. missed first time that they did include dampers to account for foot traffic vibration. that was the problem with the london example i gave.
but i wonder if that will also account for the bounce that a shear wind could start to generate? a little bit of bounce could make the wind alternate passing above and below the structure. and this alternation would exacerbate the bounce, increasing its period. i dunno.
and they said walls and floor are glass. is the ceiling open? is there going to be an eddy of wind constantly catching inside the channel that the two glass walls create? hold onto your skirts and hats!
Aspect- I worked with a GC who did reservation work- mostly bad casinos. He said the tribes he worked with paid in all cash and had no inspections or permit process.
From what I know WRT to codes and regulations I think reservations are exempt. I also visited a new casino on the Blackhead reservation Browning, MT this last xmas holiday. I noticed all of the bathrooms and public spaces we really close to code in terms of ADA. So maybe it is different for each tribe, scope of work and the local jurisdiction??
I would think that even though reservations are "technically" soverign territory governed by the indians, as subject to american style liablity the threat of potential lawsuits would be enough to make them consider the safety of potential visitors to this skywalk.
back in the news...and the girders are huge - larger in scale to the body than the first renderings in this poist suggest. however, it seems that not all issues begin and end with structural safety (remember what happened when others built on "hallowed ground").
$25/walk?! There's no way I would pay that- the experience is over in five minutes. Completely apart from the architecture, this is NOT a viable business.
i think its kinda cute how the welcome center/cafe looks all olde tyme grande canyone...and that heartless, godless, souless savage in the feathers n' stuff! hope he doesnt go a-scalpin' while i'm there! bring the firewater and "special" blankets! i'd pay lotsa wumpum for that thrill ride...does barbie have an injun costume?
The Grand Canyon Skywalk
from timesonline.co.uk;
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
A TRIBE of native Americans is preparing to build a glassbottomed walkway out over the Grand Canyon, allowing tourists to “float” over the Colorado River 4,000ft below.
The “skywalk” will extend 70ft over the canyon’s south rim in a horseshoe shape. Its glass bottom will be supported by steel beams and will comfortably carry 120 people — one hopes. It is scheduled to open in January, provided an insurance company can be found to underwrite it.
In theory, the skywalk will allow visitors to experience the vastness of the canyon in Arizona without having to take a helicopter or boat tour.
It will offer a unique view of the rock strata, which range in age from the 230-million-year-old Kaibab limestone at the top, to the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu schist at the very bottom of the inner gorge. “You’re basically looking 4,000ft down. It’s a whole new way to experience the Grand Canyon,” said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive of the corporation, which is overseeing the project.
The walkway is part of a $40 million (£22.2 million) effort by the Hualapai tribe to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land along the canyon’s south rim into a tourist destination that could include a resort, golf course and campground.
The Grand Canyon National Park — which has no control over the reservation land — has not objected, saying the skywalk will attract those who want a Las Vegas thrill while its own area will still draw those interested in nature.
The Hualapais’ destination, to be known as Grand Canyon West, will also feature an Indian village and Western-themed town, which are scheduled to open next Thursday. Visitors to the skywalk will pay $25. The Hualapais hope it will help to double the number of tourists to their area to 500,000 a year.
The reservation still has a long way to go before it can compete with the national park: about 4.3 million tourists went to the official visitors area at the south rim in 2004.
Ms Yellowhawk said her tribe, which has about 2,000 members, needed to improve the infrastructure before Grand Canyon West could grow into an important destination.
David Jin, the skywalk’s architect, insists that it will be safe, but he will build a café and patio next to it for those who bottle out at the last minute. “It’s pretty scary,” he admitted.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article559184.ece
check the related video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxUhVyzLRM&eurl=
Tragic... simply tragic
here's another image
tragic? tragic is children fighting in wars...this is merely tourism...i personally am more annoyed by snowmobilers in Yellowstone than a sky walk in the RV world of the rim,
Not tragic, but a shame that technology and economics is once agaon intruding on the natural beauty. Novelty wears off in about 5 years, and they'll be stuck maintaining it.
Snowmobiles in Yellowstone has to be against some law, somewhere.
"In theory, the skywalk will allow visitors to experience the vastness of the canyon in Arizona without having to take a helicopter or boat tour."
finally, mankind can experience 'vastness' without a boat or helicopter... and to think it may happen in my lifetime!
mr. jin is suggesting that a cantilever with those sectional proportions is safe....really??? guess it dpends on one's definition of safe.
can you imagine the wind buffeting and the resulting periodic vibrations that design would create?
tacoma narrows anyone?
that grand canyon design looks kind of schlocky to me.
not quite the same thing (no glass bottom) but some norwegians architects named saunders&wilhelmsen built a nice lookout a few years back. here's a couple pics...
that glass edge would definitely be enough to make me feel uneasy
I actually saw a whole show (discovery channel kids) on this, and the engineering that is taking place/has taken place on this project is unbelievable. I mean safe does not even begin to describe it, at least from a load bearing and wind force stand point. That thing is fricken rigid as can be and then some. So the 'safeness' of it's load carrying ability is quite easily met.
now as far as some idiot trying not to commit suicide from it....well that's just another story!
I do love the work of the norwegians, and it's just "classy", whereas the skywalk is more....hmmm...less pleasing? not sure what word to use.
sorry meant to say - I saw it on the Discovery Channel, kids! (as opposed to the discovery channel that is for kids) hehe
Surprised no one has suggested a cable sride where you clip in a slide down a line or across the canyon. Similar to the tree cable rides through the forest in Costa Rica etc.
Mind you the diaper changing station on the other side might be a bit unusual.
lol.....
indeed whistler.....but that whole zip is the worst invention they could have come up with esp in a eco system as fragile as Costa Rica's (and it pisses me off cause Im from there....don't get me started)
haha
but I do like the diaper changing station idea. They may not need it at the other end of the zip line, but rather on your return trip/walk around the horseshoe...right next to the cafe.
If the goverment would just give the indians a fair shake on the land that they have taken from the indians this project would never have to happen. I think it is sinful. Having hiked, paddled and flown over the grand canyon on a number of occassions think it is a silly project, but then again I'm not the average joe....never been to disney land or world for that matter.
indeed snook....and of course this will make the indians the money they seek to have electricity and proper sewage for their reservations as all those unsightly and overweight american families will flood the area during the summers just to see this spectacle.
Oh wait, I must be dreaming again...I was thinking that those in power (the indians who are running this) might decide not to hoard the monies made from this project and screw their own people over.
money is an interesting and destructive element in this world!
Wow...
You guys are a bunch of commies. I love the great outdoors, and i've hiked many a hill in many a land and i don't really see a problem with this skywalk. It doesn't look intrusive to me at all and i think it would be quite facinating to experience the canyon that way. I've been there before and it was absolutely gorgeous and massive. I highly doubt that tiny skywalk, which from those images tries really hard to blend in, would be an eyesore of major, nature destroying proportions. That resort and tourist trap though could be another story entirely, but the walk looks pretty cool. Besides, its the indian's land and we can whine if they build something really bad yet at the end of the day we have to respect their right to build on their land.
By the way, that norwegian deal is alot classier, but i think it or something like it would be to intrusive in the context of the grand canyon.
agreed.
i like the adobe structure that the thing is comming out of
What the Hell is wrong with looking over the edge?
I have to admit though, one of the best vertigo-inducing ways to see the canyon though is to just sit on its edge.
because our edge goes to 11
brilliant
That's the issue. The Skywalk actually looks cool and respectful. But the fact that it's intended as the catalyst for a mayor tourist trap in a one of natures greatest wonders really worries me.
That said though, I would probably never go on it since my fear of heights would probably just kill me. Maybe if it didn't have a glass bottom...
While i can think of several hundred more tragic things... Somthing about this bugs me and i can't really place it. Its not so much the skywalk... I think it has to do with the "development" of land in our national parks. The national park system as i understand it was started as an effort to preserve the sense of the american frontier, and protect the natural condition of such places, to shelter them from turning into commercialized destinations. The grand canyon is somthing to explore not to play golf next to. My capitalistic tendancies run deep but this presents a bad precedent.
Make money on camping and back country hiking permits, or tours.
"The walkway is part of a $40 million (£22.2 million) effort by the Hualapai tribe to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land along the canyon’s south rim into a tourist destination that could include a resort, golf course and campground."
It is not park land, it is native american land.
Native Americans did not start the tourism, merely cashing in on it.
Interesting idea, really bad execution. I would be less offended by the design (and other Am. tourist oriented structures) if they were just considered. This design reminds me of some of the NA casinos- many of which are horribly designed. I agree with Puddles- the Norwegian structure has elegence and sophisitcation to it.
At least give the design an aesthetic that compliments the Canyon and exposes the engineering in some way. A poorly designed structure on the rim of one of the most beatiful places on earth seems like a crime.
at least they got the how to render like it's 1973 guy on board
Thank's Jason for setting me straight...
This is not on National park land. I misunderstood
Ramos - what the hell is that? Is that a tongue holder?
salvador dali's paranoid-critical diagram
Lacan and Dali were friends who probably exchanged information about their intellectual journey, when Dali proposed his diagram of the inner workings of the Paranoid-Critical Method: limp, unprovable conjectures generated through the deliberate simulation of paranoiac thought processes, supported (made critical) by the 'crutches' of Cartesian rationality.http://nfrance.com/~eq12866/akh/suba/itsy.htm
toward the bottom of the page
rem references it in delirious new york ..
so how are they going to clean all of the vertigo-induced puke off of the skywalk?
strickly speaking, the norwegians deal is kind of decorative to have the handrailing, flooring, parapet wall continues all the way down, while having a cantelever structure with glass parepet wall at the end produce the same effect.
i was curious about the structure of this thing. in the video they talk about having accounted for wind load, etc. but what they describe doesn't align with their rendering >> unless the people and doors in the visitor's center are 15' tall, there are no 32" box beams in the walkway shown in the rendering.
still curious about the stiffness of the steel hanging out over the canyon in the wind. it may cantilever fine, but i'm thinking people that DON'T get sick from the height/vertigo are going to get sick from the way this thing will bounce. remember the bridge in london (foster? rogers?) that bounced and had to be shut down?
and, of course, everybody's going to crowd the end of the horseshoe... i'm sure they've thought of that.
sorry. missed first time that they did include dampers to account for foot traffic vibration. that was the problem with the london example i gave.
but i wonder if that will also account for the bounce that a shear wind could start to generate? a little bit of bounce could make the wind alternate passing above and below the structure. and this alternation would exacerbate the bounce, increasing its period. i dunno.
and they said walls and floor are glass. is the ceiling open? is there going to be an eddy of wind constantly catching inside the channel that the two glass walls create? hold onto your skirts and hats!
I am sure their engineers have considered non of this.
i'm curious to know, does the building codes/regulations (required by US law) not apply to indian reservation area?
the same way they build casino?
if so, could be quite dangerous to walk around there.
Aspect- I worked with a GC who did reservation work- mostly bad casinos. He said the tribes he worked with paid in all cash and had no inspections or permit process.
From what I know WRT to codes and regulations I think reservations are exempt. I also visited a new casino on the Blackhead reservation Browning, MT this last xmas holiday. I noticed all of the bathrooms and public spaces we really close to code in terms of ADA. So maybe it is different for each tribe, scope of work and the local jurisdiction??
yeah, that's what i thought... and i ain't gonna get near that skywalk thing or unless i wanna walk to heaven.
I would think that even though reservations are "technically" soverign territory governed by the indians, as subject to american style liablity the threat of potential lawsuits would be enough to make them consider the safety of potential visitors to this skywalk.
It will take a lot of engineering to dissuade young George Hayduke. Or should I say Rudolph the Red.
Those box girders are f***ing massive. Maybe that will quell some of the worries about structural stability.
back in the news...and the girders are huge - larger in scale to the body than the first renderings in this poist suggest. however, it seems that not all issues begin and end with structural safety (remember what happened when others built on "hallowed ground").
I just hope they don't really try to make the stucco on the building look like red canyon rock. That would be horrifying.
hahaha, nice...aspect. I was thinking the same damn thing!!
hmmm....the skywalk itself is not too bad, imho, but i wish the white stucco architecture around it was a bit better....
$25/walk?! There's no way I would pay that- the experience is over in five minutes. Completely apart from the architecture, this is NOT a viable business.
rationalist, you'd be surprised how many tourists would cough up that kind of dough to get this experience....
Pardon the thought: AS AN OLE INDIAN MYSTIC WOULD SAY:" F**k THE SELL OUTS! LEAVE THE CANYON ALONE!
i think its kinda cute how the welcome center/cafe looks all olde tyme grande canyone...and that heartless, godless, souless savage in the feathers n' stuff! hope he doesnt go a-scalpin' while i'm there! bring the firewater and "special" blankets! i'd pay lotsa wumpum for that thrill ride...does barbie have an injun costume?
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