From Deseret News archives:
Step over gorge's edge
Arizona tribe is building glass skywalk at rim of Grand Canyon
"The canyon to us is a very spiritual and powerful place, but it should be shared by everybody," says tribe member Wilfred Whatoname Jr., 47, who lives in Peach Springs, the capital of the Hualapai's 1-million-acre reservation, which borders 108 miles of the Grand Canyon.
The tribe's economic health depends on tourism, but tribal leaders decided gaming ventures didn't make sense because Las Vegas was a mere 120 miles away. Instead, the tribe takes tourists by helicopter into the canyon, on pontoon rides down the Colorado River, and on day trips to experience the pristine, sacred sites on tribal land.
When the skywalk is completed, visitors will be able to walk out onto the horseshoe-shaped platform and peer 4,000 feet straight down to the winding Colorado River. Welding is nearly complete on the massive steel-beam sections that will encase layer after layer of architectural structural glass manufactured in Germany and Austria by Saint Gobain. A Utah firm, Mark Steel, provided the steel beams.
The cantilever design of the bridge with its steel footings buried 40 feet deep will keep half the skywalk on solid ground. Another 70 feet of the structure will jut out over the sheer cliff walls of the Grand Canyon's rim.
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349 - Editorial: Mormons and gay rights
199 - Senators want food tax restored
162 - Will state consider gay rights law?
145 - Letters: Strange breed in Utah
129 - Utes remain silent about BCS
120 - S.L. vote pending on gay protections
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103
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