Wanda Smith of Mt. Airy poses with Nik Wallenda after he autographed her copy of his book at the Rabun County Library.
High wire walker Nik Wallenda came to Rabun County this past weekend, autographing copies of his third book and saying “God bless you” as he passed the book copies back to their owners. He said something else, too – something memorable to those who heard it. He said he wants to walk, as his great grandfather did, across Tallulah Gorge on a wire. “It will happen,” he said.
Next month marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the late Karl Wallenda’s walk across the almost 1,000-foot gorge. Nik’s great grandfather stopped to make two handstands on the wire along the way, as nearly 30,000 spectators watched. He walked across the gorge on July 18, 1970. Now, Nik Wallenda wants to make that walk, too. He said it would honor the memory of the great grandfather he deeply admired – “to carry on his legacy.”
“I love my great grandfather,” he said. “This was his biggest walk.”
Initially, Nik Wallenda’s visit to Rabun County this year was slated to include a walk across the gorge. The Rabun County Tourism Development Authority hoped for its multi-day Skywalk Celebration to feature a live Wallenda walk. That walk never materialized.
Now, for Nik Wallenda to have the walk he wants would require one large sponsor, he said, “or several sponsors,” to fund the initial engineering team’s work to design and create the structure on which he would walk.
When asked how he practices for such a walk, he said, “I’m on a wire often – in my back yard. I practice every day.” He has a number of wires in his yard, in a variety of lengths and heights.
The back yard is at his home is in Pensacola, Florida, where – he said on Saturday – he has “a beautiful wife and three children.” The importance of extended family is stressed in the book he was autographing, “Balance: a Story of Faith, Family, and Life on the Line.”
Wearing a cross necklace, Nik Wallenda explained why the word “faith” came first,in the list, in the title of his book. “It’s the most important,” he said.
Nik Wallenda has walked great distances on a high wire – like across Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. On November 2, 2014 he completed a hair raising, record breaking walk between two Chicago skyscrapers. After that he announced to the world his intentions to walk across Tallulah Gorge. With his resolute statement this weekend that, “It will happen,” now it simply seems to be a question of when.
