Take a deep breath, and try to remember the first time you looked down from a high place. Your stomach muscles clenched, and you had a bizarre feeling like you would fall if you didn’t hold onto something. Maybe you said something, or maybe you couldn’t speak. Either way, you just knew that you would never forget the experience.
4,700 Feet Above Ground
Earlier this month in China, the first group of tourists got to step onto a huge glass walkway and experience those exact feelings, but with greater intensity.
This amazing attraction spans 100 meters along the side of Tianmen Mountain in Hunan’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and adds a stunning new feature to the already picturesque Yunmeng fairy summit. Looking down, there is a 4,700-foot drop to the forests below, and the glass that is used for the walkway is 2.5 inches thick.
Pictures are worth a thousand words but for a truly hair-raising experience, you have to be there. Another option is to check out this video.
It opens with a view of the gondola ride which takes you up into the mountains, as well as the snake-like road that you would take to get there. The aerial view of some of the shots really illustrate how scary it would be to make the trip to the glass walkway, and finally see it towering around a stunning mountain panorama.
The video then goes on to show several tourists walking along the walkway, most of them trying to stop themselves from looking down. Although some camera angles don’t make the view seem scary, I can assure you that we would all probably be doing the same thing, if given the opportunity.
The tourists in the video can also be seen wearing cloth shoe-covering to prevent the small floor from smudging and becoming dirty. My guess is that even window washers can be afraid of heights!
For more stunning sights around the world, check out Top 10 Stargazing spots around the globe or 24 Jaw-Dropping National Parks!