National

Travel: Hualapai Tribe's Skywalk worth a visit

Monday, July 2, 2007

"The Grand Canyon, long a symbol of the grandeur of America's landscapes, is more than 200 miles long. Just over 100 miles of that is within the Hualapai Indian Reservation. The skywalk is about 120 miles east of Las Vegas.

For more than 100 years, that part of the canyon was off-limits to non-Indians. Then, 19 years ago, the impoverished Hualapai decided to welcome tourists. Even so, the vast majority of visitors kept heading to the famed Grand Canyon National Park.

But there are several reasons to consider the Hualapai-owned section of the canyon, either in addition to or instead of your trip to the national park.

For many people, the main draw to this section of the canyon is the skywalk itself -- an engineering marvel constructed of a million pounds of steel and 90 tons of tempered glass. An even more compelling reason, in my opinion: the relative lack of tourists, at least for now.

The skywalk created an exponential boom in tourism to the million-acre Hualapai reservation. Still, that means on average 1,200 tourists a day -- or about 438,000 a year, if the current rush continues throughout the year, including winter, which is unlikely. Compare that number with the 4.1 million visitors annually to Grand Canyon National Park. Most visitors arrive by tour bus from Las Vegas, and after an hour or so of gawking, they eat lunch and head back to Vegas."

Get the Story:
Over the Edge (The Washington Post 7/1)
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