Daredevil Nik Wallenda's Niagara tightrope triumph

Nik Wallenda's Niagara tightrope triumph
Nik, a seventh-generation member of the daredevil and circus legends, the Flying Wallendas, became the first to walk a tightrope over the full 1,800 feet of the gorge, fulfilling a life's ambition and boosting tourism
STEPHEN FOLEY    SUNDAY 17 JUNE 2012
The Independent


'What is the purpose of your trip, sir?" the customs agent asked Nik Wallenda when he presented his passport at the Canadian border. "To inspire people around the world," he replied.




Moments before, Wallenda had become the first person ever to walk over Niagara Falls on a tightrope dripping with spray from the thunderous waterfall that separates the US from Canada. With 100,000 people on the ground watching the night-time stunt under glaring spotlights, and millions more listening in to Wallenda's miked-up prayers on live television as he made his way across, the 33-year-old daredevil fulfilled a lifelong dream that was also a family destiny.


http://digcan.com


His is the seventh generation of the famous Flying Wallendas, who can lay claim to a history of death- and gravity-defying high-wire acts since they were a family of travelling acrobats in Austria-Hungary in the 18th century. Nik Wallenda's great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell to his death during a stunt in Puerto Rico in 1978.


"This is what dreams are made of – people," Wallenda said, as he took his first steps over Horseshoe Falls, the widest of Niagara's three waterfalls. Wearing elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother to withstand the sopping conditions and a safety harness that would have saved his life if he had fallen – at the insistence of ABC, the US broadcaster that sponsored the $1.3m event – Wallenda edged across the 1,800ft of the gorge for 25 minutes, with the winds and mists whipping him as he went.


"I'm strained, I'm drained," he said, at the halfway mark. "This is so physical, not only mental but physical ... My hands are going numb. I feel like I'm getting weak."


Wallenda broke into a run for the final yards on the Canadian side, where his wife and three children were waiting to greet him.


"There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable," he said later. "If I looked down at the cable, there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up, there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation.


"I am so blessed. How blessed I am to have the life that I have."


Wallenda already holds six Guinness World Records, including one for the longest and the highest bicycle ride on a tightrope and, with seven other members of the Flying Wallendas, the record for a pyramid of eight people on a highwire. Last year, he completed the stunt that killed his great-grandfather, a highwire slung in the same spot between two towers of the 10-storey Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico.


At one point in the middle of the Niagara walk, he thought about his great-grandfather and the walks he had taken: "That's what this is all about – paying tribute to my ancestors and my hero, Karl Wallenda." He called the achievement a dream come true. "I hope what I do and what I just did inspires people around the world to reach for the skies," he said.


While tightrope walkers drew huge crowds in the 19th century as they crossed the Niagara river at narrower points downstream, no one has crossed the falls themselves, and daredevil stunts have been banned entirely since 1896 – until Wallenda persuaded local authorities on both sides of the border that a crossing would boost tourism.


"Over one billion people by Monday will have known the story of Nik Wallenda over Niagara Falls," Tim Clark, of the Buffalo-Niagara Film Board, told ABC News, "and I think that's just fantastic reinforcement for our tourism industry here in western New York state."


Anticipation had been building for weeks, as Wallenda practised in the car park of a local casino. He used a giant fan and fire trucks spraying water to simulate the tough conditions he would face over the falls.


Now, attention is already turning to what Wallenda might do for his next trick. His record-breaking ambitions are clearly not over: he already has the permits in place to become the first person to cross the Grand Canyon on a wire.


Daredevil history


The Wallenda legend extends through seven generations. The founder was Karl Wallenda – seen here in London in 1976 – who was born in 1905 and was performing by the age of six. He made his debut in 1928 at Madison Square Garden, recruited by Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey.


The family was performing in Connecticut in 1944 when one of the worst fires in US history broke out. The Wallendas slid down ropes to safety, but 168 people died.


Other tragedies include Rietta Wallenda, who fell to her death in 1963, and Karl's son-in-law, Richard Guzman, in 1972, who touched a live electric wire. The family was famed for its seven-person pyramid, but stopped this after three members fell to their deaths in 1962. Karl was 73 when he fell to his own death in Puerto Rico.


Josie Hinton



Stuntman Nik Wallenda completes tightrope walk across Niagara Falls
Tight rope walker makes history
By Neale Gulley
NIAGARA FALLS, New York
Sat Jun 16, 2012 


(Reuters) - Aerialist Nik Wallenda made a historic tightrope crossing over Niagara Falls on Friday night, stepping onto safe ground in Canada to wild cheers after completing his journey through wind and mist on a 2-inch (5-cm) cable.


Wallenda, a member of the famed "Flying Wallendas" family of aerialists, took a little more than 25 minutes to walk 1,800 feet (550 metres) from the U.S. side in the dark of night over treacherous waters and rocks in a nationally televised event.


Arriving on the Canadian side, he hugged his family and greeted Canadian officials, who playfully requested the 33-year- old American's passport. Asked the purpose of his visit, Wallenda told the officials he had come to "inspire people."


More than 150 years ago, French aerialist Charles Blondin, known as "The Great Blondin," famously walked a high wire strung farther down the Niagara gorge, but a trek over the brink of the falls had never before been attempted.


Wallenda appeared fully in control through the stunt, taking small, steady steps on a slick cable through swirling winds.


"Oh my gosh it's an unbelievable view," he said as he crossed over the falls. "This is truly breathtaking."


ABC, the television network that broadcast the event with a five-second delay, occasionally interviewed him along the walk, asking him about conditions and how he was coping.


"That mist was thick and it was hard to see at times," he said later in the walk, when he was asked about the greatest challenge. "Wind going one way, mist another. It was very uncomfortable for a while."


The network had also insisted he wear a safety tether - a first for the performer - that would connect him to the cable should he fall, and said it would stop broadcasting if he unhooked it.


Wallenda fought the condition at first, eventually agreeing. But he gave himself an out: he would unhook only if directed to do so by his father, who designed the harness and acted as his safety coordinator.


As it turned out, the tether was never tested. Wallenda walked the wire with what appeared to be perfect balance.


ROAR OF THE FALLS


Wallenda said at one point that his hands hurt from holding the balance pole, and the walk proved physically tiring. The sounds of the falls blocked out noise from an estimated crowd of tens of thousands, he told the TV audience.


"Hopefully it will be very peaceful and relaxing," Wallenda said beforehand. "I'm often very relaxed when I'm on the wire. There may be some tears because this is a dream of mine."


Since the Great Blondin took his high-wire walk, a ban had been in place on similar stunts over the famed falls. Wallenda waged a two-year crusade to convince U.S. and Canadian officials to let him try the feat. A private helicopter rescue team was part of the $1.3 million that Wallenda said he had spent on the walk.


Reyam Rashed, who moved to the area from Yemen last year, said she was most concerned as Wallenda neared the wire's low point, before he began walking back up the rope in the final push toward Canada. "I just felt like he was going to get dizzy," she said.


"At first, I thought he was not going to make it. I was impressed," she said.


Wallenda's great-grandfather Karl Wallenda died in 1978 during a walk between two buildings in Puerto Rico at age 73. Wallenda repeated that walk last year with his mother.


Wallenda said he would next prepare for a walk over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, which would be the first ever attempted and roughly three times longer than the walk over Niagara Falls.


"I just happen to have a permit," he said during an interview on ABC.


(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Peter Cooney)