Acrophobia is the fear of heights. We certainly hope you don’t have it. If so, a trip to the Zhangjiajie and Tianmen mountains in China’s Tianmen Mountain National Park may not be advised. However, if scenic routes that will get your heart racing and truly exhilarating views are what you are after, then this may be for you. The appropriately named Walk of Faith is a glass walkway that is exactly what it says on the tin. Save for the hand rails and metal and concrete supports, the 61 ft. walkway up the side of the mountain is entirely glass, allowing walkers to view the staggering height they are at, right beneath their feet, which is some 4,700 ft. above sea level.
Frankly, the glass walkway just doesn’t look safe when you first lay eyes on it, and you would blame you for thinking so? However, the glass is 2.5 inches thick with concrete support and is heavily supported against the side of the mountain, where the pathway begins on the west of the cliff, joining to the Yungmeng Fairy Summit where Zhangjiajie and Tianmen converge.
The glass walkway is quite similar to the Skywalk in The Grand Canyon, Arizona, which also gives tourists a unique viewing through a glass floor of the gorge below. The park enforces a rule that all walkers must wear plastic covers over their feet to avoid slipping or getting the glass panes dirty, as it is believed that no one will accept the job of regularly cleaning the pathway.
Irish journalist writing on business, tech and engineering.
