5 years ago, aerialist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk a high wire across the Little Colorado River Gorge near Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It was the highest walk of his career, and he completed it in just less than 23 minutes. Wallenda made the quarter-mile traverse on a 2-inch-thick steel cable some 1,500 feet above the gorge… without a safety harness! In June of the previous year, Wallenda, a member of the famous Flying Wallendas family of circus performers, also became the first person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Nik Wallenda made his professional debut as an aerialist at age 13. He went on to set a number of Guinness World Records, including the longest tightrope crossing on a bicycle and the highest eight-person tightrope pyramid. In 2011, Wallenda he and his mother successfully completed the high-wire walk in Puerto Rico that had killed his great grandfather Karl Wallenda.
