Tightrope Walker Nik Wallenda Makes It Across Canyon

Florida aerialist Nik Wallenda has completed a tightrope walk that took him a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona.

Wallenda performed the stunt late Sunday on a 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the river on the Navajo Nation near the Grand Canyon. He wasn't wearing a harness.

The event was broadcast live on the Discovery Channel.

The 34-year-old 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.

Wallenda says he has wondered what it would be like to cross an area he considers the Grand Canyon since he was a teenager.

Now he knows.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.