Nature-loving Indian tribe plans glass-bottomed walkway over Grand Canyon

I'm sure many of you have woken up of a morning and said, "What the Grand Canyon needs is more tourists. There should be more parking lots, more infrastructure, a resort, and a golf course. But, even better, what about a glass-bottomed walkway jutting 70 feet out into the Canyon so tourons can look down at the bottom 4000' below? Wouldn't that be nice?"

Well, the nature-loving Hualapai Tribe is planning to make that dream a reality:

The horseshoe-shaped skywalk, scheduled to open in January, is part of the Hualapai Tribe's $40 million efforts to turn 1,000 acres of reservation land into tourist operations that someday could include a high-end resort, golf course and campgrounds.

The destination, known as Grand Canyon West, also will feature an Indian village and Western-themed town, which are scheduled to open Sept. 1.

Visitors to the skywalk will pay $25 for a bird's-eye view of the canyon below.

The skywalk could help double the number of visitors to Grand Canyon West to 500,000 a year, said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive officer of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., a tribal-owned company that oversees the project...

OutdoorSports · Thu, 08/25/2005 - 06:55 · Importance: 1