The Critics: The Grand Canyon Skywalk

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  05.21.07 | 7:20 AM ET

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Photo of the Grand Canyon Skywalk by Marcusman, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

First came the hype. Now comes the big-league critical eye. New York Times cultural critic Edward Rothstein shuffled in his yellow surgical booties along the see-through glass of the Grand Canyon Skywalk, and he wasn’t too impressed. Seeing the Canyon from its natural edge, he suggests, transcends any man-made perch.

“[T]he frisson of danger is more properly mixed with another sentiment that has long lured viewers to the great south rim of the Grand Canyon: a sense of awe at the expanse of space, and the humbling sense of something sublime, lying beyond the grasp of human capacities,” he writes. “The Skywalk, with its peach-colored industrial-style supports under its glass floor, doesn’t come close.”