Daredevil walks tightrope across gorge by the Grand Canyon
The 34 year old, who walked across the Niagara Falls last year, prayed constantly as he crossed a tributary gorge of the US landmark on a quarter- mile long high wire some 1,500ft above the Little Colorado River.
Wind gusts were higher than expected, and he twice crouched down on the wire. “Those winds [were] so unpredictable ... just out of the blue there would be a 35 miles an hour gust,” he said.
“My arms are aching like you couldn’t believe,” he added, hugging his wife and children after the nerve-wracking walk — without a harness — over the stunning gorge in eastern Arizona, broadcast live around the world.
Organisers said he took 22 minutes and 54 seconds to cross the 1,400ft — faster than anticipated — giving a thumbs up and half-running the last several yards to reach the other side.
Wallenda’s feat made it into the top 10 global topics on Twitter, with organisers saying there were some 700,000 tweets during the walk alone.
There was some debate over whether the walk was over the Grand Canyon itself — technically it was over a tributary gorge in the Navajo Nation, east of the main part of the landmark.
But organisers insisted he had walked across the Grand Canyon, and many who watched the death- defying stunt were willing to forgive any over-zealous marketing hype.
Wallenda has been planning the walk for about four years, homing in on a remote location at the eastern end of the mighty geological chasm, on land operated by Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation.
He had hoped to take questions from journalists live while on the high wire, but it became clear within a few minutes of the start that he needed all his concentration for the walk.
“Praise God, this is awesome... Thank you Jesus for this beautiful view,” he said.
“Winds are way worse than I expected,” he added at one point, in comments broadcast live by the Discovery Channel in over 200 countries.
His father was in constant live radio link with him, although for the first five minutes, the conversation consisted largely of Wallenda asking Jesus and God to help him and to calm the winds.
He first crouched down before the half-way point, explaining afterwards he needed to stabilise the cable, and himself. “The winds were getting really gusty right then,” he said. “It was just getting really, really uncomfortable.”
Wallenda was rigged up with a microphone and live cameras, including one on his chest looking straight downwards to the Canyon floor below — a distance more than the height of the Empire State Building.
As he passed the half- way point he continued to pray — but as he neared the other side, the tension lifted palpably, when, instead of thanking God and Jesus, he said: “Thank you Discovery Channel for believing in me.”
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