Wallenda Trying Big Walk

From Fox News: Daredevil Nik Wallenda is using the Navajo Nation as a backdrop to one of his most ambitious feats yet -- crossing a tightrope 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River Gorge near the Grand Canyon.
The 34-year-old Sarasota, Fla., resident will set out Sunday on a quarter-mile cable stretched over the gorge that was eyed by another high-wire performer decades ago. The stunt comes a year after he traversed Niagara Falls earning a seventh Guinness world record. He'll be using the same 2-inch-thick cable he used to cross the falls, only this time he won't be wearing a safety harness.
After saying a prayer, "I give my wife and kids a hug and a kiss and tell them I'll see them in a bit," he told reporters Friday in Flagstaff.
Wallenda is a seventh-generation high-wire artist and is part of the famous "Flying Wallendas" circus family -- a clan that is no stranger to death-defying feats and great tragedy.
His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell during a performance in Puerto Rico and died at the age of 73. Several other family members, including a cousin and an uncle, have perished while performing wire walking stunts.
Nik Wallenda, who was born a year after his great-grandfather died, began wire walking at the age of 2, on a 2-foot high stretched rope. He grew up performing with his family and has dreamed of crossing the Grand Canyon since he was a teenager.....
Should wind gusts that are expected to be around 30 mph threaten to throw him off, Wallenda said he'll grab hold of the wire and wait it out if possible. A paramedic will be looking up at him from the river, he said.
Wallenda is highly confident in his ability to reach the other side, having walked in 52 mph wind gusts during Tropical Storm Andrea with a torrential downpour and training with wind machines that simulated 45-55 mph gusts. The only thing that would stop him entirely is lightning within a 15-mile radius, he said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/23/aerialist-wallenda-to-cross-gorge-near-g-canyon/?test=latestnews#ixzz2X2Eq6gAO
It will be interesting watching him today and hope things work out for the best.
Though not sure what the paramedic looking up at him will do if he falls.
Hope he does better than his great grandfather, Karl: