Grand Canyon and Skywalk

I just got back from my trip to the Grand Canyon and the Skywalk. A great day all round with temperatures at around 106 degrees the flight was just great fun, more like a roller coaster than a normal plane trip. I’d forgotten how much fun light aircraft can be. Photos are up already.

It’s only about 25 minutes from the Boulder City airport to the Grand Canyon and then after that the group split off with half going to do helicopter trips to the canyon floor and the other half, including me, heading off to the Skywalk. Now, as Carl warned in the comments of a previous blog entry it does cost more, $27.50 to be precise. The thing which annoyed me more than that is that you are not allowed to take your camera onto the platform, instead they try and scalp you with “official” photos. Well I didn’t get any of those but the view is absolutely stunning. The place is still a bit of a building site at the moment, just the walkway itself exists at the moment, in the future they are going to add a whole visitors centre onto it. There was also talk of the tiny airport being expanded to take 737-type jets, I think that would ruin the rather ramshackle feel of the place so I hope it doesn’t happen.

All that being said about the Skywalk I think I got more of a thrill just walking up to the edge of the canyon proper. I came here with my family when I was a kid and I was afraid that it would have become sanitised by our risk averse culture but gratifyingly they still don’t have any safety rails, you’re just told to use your common sense. A vertigo sufferer’s nightmare but really quite exciting if you’re OK with heights.

Bizarrely for the first time while I was at the edge of the canyon I got just the slightest urge to jump, I obviously didn’t but it was a very strange feeling. No idea where that came from!

Anyway, back to Boston tomorrow and then off home on Thursday. Boo.