How High is the Skywalk in the Grand Canyon?
7,000’ … 8,000’ … 4,000’ … when you read about the altitude of the Grand Canyon, all kinds of figures are bouncing around the internet, when all you want to find out is how high is the Skywalk in the Grand Canyon?
The Grand Canyon Skywalk is located at Grand Canyon West, a Native American Tribal Park located almost smack dead center between Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim and Las Vegas, Nevada. More of a “true desert” environment than the South and North Rims, Grand Canyon West is 4,770’ above sea level (ASL).
Before construction actually began on the Grand Canyon Skywalk, artist renderings depicted it at a dizzying height of 4,000’ above the Colorado River. In reality, that didn’t quite turn out to be the case. According to Wikipedia:
USGS topographic maps show the elevation at the Skywalk’s location as 4,770 ft (1,450 m) and the elevation of the Colorado River in the base of the canyon as 1,160 ft (350 m), and they show that the height of the precisely vertical drop directly under the skywalk is between 500 ft (150 m) and 800 ft (240 m).
Original plans had the Skywalk being positioned in a location with a more dramatic drop underneath it, but the bedrock in the area proposed didn’t allow the cantilevered structure enough of a stable foothold to be safe for spectators. In its present location, over a side canyon at Eagle Point, the Grand Canyon Skywalk is strong enough to hold the weight of over 800 people weighing in at 200 lbs.
So while the view from the Grand Canyon Skywalk isn’t quite what designers first had in mind, the real view still makes hearts aplenty skip a beat – over a million hearts a year, to be exact!
The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a 2 hour drive from Las Vegas, NV. It can be experienced on a self-drive basis, or on a Las Vegas Grand Canyon tour package by bus, van, limo, plane or helicopter.