Egads! For those afraid of heights...

Fear is a strange thing. It's usually easier to overcome a rational fear than an irrational one. I doubt if anybody really believes the skywalk will collapse during the few minutes they are on it. But looking straight down through a glass floor to the ground hundreds or thousands of feet below seems awfully creepy. And some people just don't want to experience that. As I said, I'd be terrified, but I'd do it because I'd know I was actually safer while on the skywalk than on the drive to it.

 

i got an email on this a few months back and was ready to hop in to the Prius and do it. i was pretty bummed to find it was not even there. (artists rendition) so to hear March is ok... except vacation does not align nearly as well and with a due date of March 24th, it will not really be an option... oh well, maybe next year

 

I tried to search for it with Google Maps but could not find it anywhere on the South rim. I guess either the satellite photos are over a year old (really likely), or I just missed it (just as likely).

Anyone know the exact coordinates of this thing?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Dec 17 2006, 10:09 AM) [snapback]363416[/snapback]</div>

It's got to be one of these two places, but the images are too old to show platform construction hanging over the edge.

Site one
Site two
(Use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out, Click and drag to move location. Note the airstrip south of the sites.)

I am so there! Glass floor and five foot high glass wall - cool!

I was very disappointed with the observation floor of the Sears Tower – It's totally enclosed! :angry: May as well save the money and just watch it on TV.

Best high view yet: Standing (tethered of course) on the lowered cargo ramp of a C-130 and looking out the back while flying over the San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, and down the coast to Santa Cruz. That open air feeling is much better than being in an enclosed jet.

 

I will admit I would not likely go out on this. It is, admittedly, an irrational fear....give me a dark alley with stange noises any day (LOL)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Dec 17 2006, 12:44 PM) [snapback]363451[/snapback]</div>

Hang-gliding near Queenstown, New Zealand, ain't bad either for a high view, though I did get pretty airsick. Like yours, very open air. Only I was facing forward.

I'm pondering a winter snorkeling trip to Cozumel or Playa del Carmen. I see where they offer tandem sky diving. I've always said I'd never do that. But maybe it's something you gotta do once, if you have the chance. They give you a 30-second free-fall (10,000 feet jump altitude?) but they don't say how long the parachute glide lasts, or whether higher jumps are available.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 17 2006, 01:13 PM) [snapback]363468[/snapback]</div>

We are all afraid of different things.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 17 2006, 06:41 PM) [snapback]363500[/snapback]</div>

Go for it. I did a tandem jump over the Arizona desert. It was one of the thing I will remember forever. I have a healthy fear of hights, so I was suprised that I was not scared upon exiting the plane. There was just a sense of the surreal, watching the airplane just going away. Then we got lined up right and the view was simply breathtaking. Literally, too. It's rather hard to breath while at terminal velocity.

 

Not nearly as high, but in Hawai'i I went for parasailing. They strap you to a parachute and a rope, and pull you behind a speedboat. Before going I figured it was 100% safe, because if the rope breaks, you float down to the ocean on the parachute, and you are wearing a life vest, and I can swim.

But once in the air I realized that if the connection to the parachute breaks, or anything causes the parachute to fail, you're dead. Obviously, that's very unlikely. You hang some distance below the parachute, so there is a slight rocking motion, like a porch swing, and I got slightly motion sick. I get motion sick on porch swings. Also rocking chairs and elevators.

I know I'll get motion sick once the parachute opens and we are sailing around. How long does the parachute glide last? When I went hang-gliding it was a lot of fun, but I was so sick that I was very glad when we landed after 10 minutes of flight. I had taken a double dose of Bonine, my prefered anti-motion-sickness pill.

 

Not me....... I visited the Empire State Bldg. Walked out to look and literally crawled back in w/eyes closed. just looking at skylines in movies makes me dizzy and naushious.... anything past the 10th floor and Im done:blink: