Don't look down ... Wallenda on the tightrope
Crackpot high-wire artist Nik Wallenda completed a quarter-mile tightrope walk near the Grand Canyon 1,500 feet up WITHOUT A HARNESS. The 34-year-old Florida man performed yesterday's stunt on a two-inch-thick steel cable strung above Little Colorado River Gorge on the Navajo Nation near the Grand Canyon. Not content with simply completing the challenge, the daredevil HOPPED and SKIPPED the last few metres.
Highwire act ... Nik Wallenda begins his walk
Around half-way through the mad stuntman said: “Thank-you Lord. Thank you for calming that cable, God.” He stepped slowly and steady throughout, murmuring prayers to Jesus almost constantly along the way.
Finishing in less than 23 minutes, he paused and crouched twice as winds whipped around him so that he could get “the rhythm out of the rope.”
Brave or mad? ... Wallenda shocked the world
Winds blowing across the gorge were expected to be around 30mph.
He said: "It was way more windy, and the movement of the cable, the side walls as I was walking were getting in the way and confusing me as the pendulums were swinging against them.
"So I tried to react and when I reacted I kicked that rhythm into the cable and it took every bit of me to focus that entire time, my arms are aching!"
Wallenda told the Discovery Channel after the walk that the winds were at times “unpredictable” and that dust had accumulated on and around his contact lenses.
Prayers ... Wallenda prayed he could finish the challenge
He said: “I was building a huge rhythm into the cable and I had to sit down to hopefully take that rhythm out, that was the only thing that I could do. If I didn't go down and kept walking, it was just getting worse.”
Wallenda is a seventh-generation high-wire artist and is part of the famous “Flying Wallendas” circus family – a clan no stranger to death-defying feats.
Skill ... Wallenda finsihed the challenge unscathed
His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell during a performance in Puerto Rico and died at the age of 73. Several other family members, including a cousin and an uncle, have perished while performing wire walking stunts.
Wallenda hopes his next stunt will be a tightrope walk between the Empire State building and the Chrysler building in New York.
