One of my childhood dreams is to travel the whole world. I plan to visit a lot of places and embark on numerous adventures, trivial and extreme in every country I travel to.
On my usual quest of finding something fun to watch on Youtube while eating, I found Keep Running S5. The missions the guests had to complete looked easy enough until they got to the Yanuoda’s Waaalilu Viewing Platform. They even offer a cliff swing experience at the glass bridge. Talk about something being terrifyingly exciting.
I would want to have the cliff swing experience and walk the whole distance on the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge, China, the tallest glass-bottomed bridge. The bridge’s total length and width are 430 meters and 6 meters respectively. Imagine being 980ft above the ground. You know glass is transparent, so looking down could surely make one feel nauseous. Another clear indication of only the brave-hearted can try this😶. One Chinese couple got married by dangling in mid-air from the glass bridge. Woh, they have even held an eating challenge on a glass bridge in Yueyang county.
It’s normal to feel scared though but I guess one could easily recover when you see the scenery. The bridges and skywalks are usually located around mountains and cliffs. Of course, glass is fragile so this might make the idea seem very scary to most people.
In reality, the type of glass used in these structures is very thick and sturdy. Paul Bingham, a materials scientist at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, says he would have no qualms walking on one as long as it wasn’t during 150-kilometre-per-hour wind. "The steel structures beneath it are incredibly dense, so even if the glass breaks, visitors won't fall through", says one of the engineers of the Zhangjiajie grand canyon, Yang Guohong.
Apart from the Zhangjiajie bridge, there are some other glass bridges such as the Brave Men’s Bridge, Glacier Skywalk, Grand Canyon Skywalk, Aiguille du Midi Skywalk, etc with majority being located in China.
Walking on a glass bridge would surely be a thrilling adventure for people who love stomach-churning heights.
N.B: This post is the first in a new series I just started, titled Going Extreme. It will comprise both locations and sports activities involving a high degree of risk. Stay Tuned😊😊