High Wire Artist Nik Wallenda Crosses Arizona Canyon
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Tim Boyles/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Famed daredevil and tightrope walker Nik Wallenda successfully crossed the Little Colorado River Gorge in Arizona Sunday night, without using either a tether or a safety harness.
Wallenda walked along a quarter-mile stretch of two-inch steel cable, 1,500 feet in the air.
“I’ve had a dream to be the first person in the world to walk a tight rope directly above the Grand Canyon,” he said in a video statement on his website, where he announced his intended feat.
But despite his claim that he would be crossing the Grand Canyon, Wallenda, 34, of Sarasota, Fla., actually walked over a gorge near the canyon.
The Discovery Channel broadcast the walk live, using a 10-second delay, according to a Discovery Channel spokesman.
Before accomplishing the feat, Wallenda said he was confident he would make the walk safely.
“I have a wife and three kids that I love very dearly, and I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought I would lose my life,” he said in his statement.
Wallenda, a seventh-generation tight rope walker, became the first tight rope artist to walk over Niagara Falls on a high wire when he accomplished the feat in 2012, bringing him his seventh Guinness world record. The event was broadcast live on ABC.
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