GRAND CANYON WEST, ARIZ.–Stepping out onto the Skywalk is meant to be an experience that will make your spirit soar.
It will also make your head spin, if you're the slightest bit queasy about heights.

But Arizona's newest, super-hyped tourist attraction is nowhere near finished and, until it finally takes shape, you might just feel like you've been left hanging. The Skywalk opened with a media splash at the end of March and it is a pretty imposing feat of engineering: an enormous steel-and-glass platform extending 21 metres over the rim of the Grand Canyon (which in these parts drops 1,220 metres to the Colorado River), on the Hualapai Indian Reservation.
The Hualapai hope to tempt some of the millions of tourists who make the trek to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas every year, and so far they've been successful.

We've been getting about 3,000 people a day, says Skywalk publicist Amanda Hill. Our highest total prior to opening the Skywalk was about 600 in one day.
The critics haven't been quite as generous, though, with complaints ranging from the difficulties in getting to the site to the fact that when you do get there, you find that you've walked smack into the middle of a construction site.

I drove down from Las Vegas, about 200 kilometres away and for the most part, it's a pleasant passage that crosses Hoover Dam and traverses the almost otherworldly landscape of the Joshua Tree National Forest.
But the last leg is hell on wheels, a knock-your-fillings-loose pounding along a 23-kilometre section of unpaved, rock-strewn road.
I thanked heaven that the rental car company in Vegas was out of compacts and upgraded me to a minivan, especially when I passed one poor family, crawling along in a puny car at about eight km/h, looking terrified that their vehicle was going to be shaken to smithereens.

The only people who didn't seem to mind the conditions were a couple of cowboys spitting up dust and rocks in an SUV.
Hill said that particular stretch of road crosses private property and that the Skywalk operators are negotiating with the owner to have it surfaced.
The road will be paved, she said.

I just don't have an exact date when it will be paved.
The reception area for Skywalk is at the Grand Canyon West Airport and when I arrived, I was directed to an auxiliary parking lot – a horde of tour buses occupied most of the main area.
Helicopters buzzed about (this is the only spot on the Grand Canyon where they're allowed to fly below the level of the rim), heavy construction equipment rumbled by and surveyors' stakes indicated where the runway will be expanded.

I hitched a lift back to the main entrance in a minivan driven by Sharon, one of the staff members, who managed to maintain her cheerful disposition, despite having to juggle several tasks: ferrying customers, directing traffic, and chasing down stray drivers who parked in the wrong spot or wandered into the restricted area.
It's been crazy here since we opened, she said.
The scene inside the terminal building/box office/gift shop/snack bar was just as chaotic as visitors tried to figure out which cash-register line – marked with handwritten signs (cash only, cash and credit, tours only, etc.

) – they were supposed to be in.
Some visitors grumbled, but everything got sorted out eventually and I jumped on the bus for a short ride to the viewing site at Eagle Point.
The Skywalk itself was a bit of a letdown.

Right now, it just looks like a giant horseshoe-shaped girder plunked down behind a chain-link fence: far less inspiring or monumental than I had imagined and nothing like the artist's rendering on the website (grandcanyonskywalk.com).
Future plans will incorporate the Skywalk in a visitors' centre with a restaurant, movie theatre, museum and gift shop.

We're hoping to begin construction on that (visitors' centre) later this year, says Hill. I don't know when it will be finished.
You can't quibble about the view, though.

The scenery is breathtaking, and even more thrilling since you can step – gingerly – right up to the canyon lip: there are no guardrails anywhere. It's almost an anti-climax to leave the rim for your sojourn on the Skywalk.
Many visitors were disappointed to learn that cameras, cell phones and video recorders are not allowed on the Skywalk for fear that they might be dropped and damage the glass deck, which is five panels deep (a thickness of more than seven centimetres).

I checked my camera at the door and climbed the stairs to the platform where I was given a pair of cloth shoe-covers – the kind that doctors and furniture delivery guys wear – so as not to scuff or scratch the floor.
Actually, the view of the canyon wasn't a whole lot better from the Skywalk than it had been just metres away at the canyon rim, but it was interesting to peer straight down at the ground below – although at this point it's only about 370 metres down, not the full 1,220 to the river, which is visible off to the side.
Lorie Robles of Florida said she enjoyed the view, but added: It's weird, but when I look down through the glass, it appears flat .

.. I don't have a sense of depth perception at all.

It almost looks like a picture. I thought I was going to feel dizzy – I'm afraid of heights – but there's nothing frightening about it at all.
It was pretty breezy way up there, and as we walked around, I noticed a collection of weather instruments perched a few metres down the canyon wall.

That keeps track of the wind conditions, said Jarrod, one of several staff members stationed along the platform. The structure can withstand winds of up to 160 km/h coming from several directions, and it's monitored constantly to make sure they can get people off well before it gets that high. They also check on winds that swirl up from the canyon floor.

Rain is more of a concern than wind, however, and staff members said they've already had to shut down twice because of wet conditions.
The glass gets pretty slick and you can slide around pretty easily, said Jarrod. When it rains, they get the people off and wait for it to stop and then wipe it down so it's safe.

Good thing, too, because the surrounding walls are only about 1 1/2 metres high.
Only 120 people are allowed on the Skywalk at any one time, but they move through pretty quickly: it really only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to get a good look.
Then it was on to the shuttle again for the next stop on the program: Guano Point, so-named because there was once a guano mine (bat droppings) in the cliff-face – the old shed and tower are still there.

Guano Point is a rocky promontory – sort of a natural Skywalk, without the glass floor. And, to me, the view here was far superior to the one at Eagle Point.
This is also where the all-you-can-eat buffet is set up, with picnic tables and a canopy to offer relief from the sun (which wasn't a big deal when I was there last week, but will be in the heat of the summer).

I had lunch here sitting on the rocks with my feet dangling over the canyon rim.
A French tourist sat nearby until his wife screamed at him: What do you think you're doing? You can't fly, you know!

Crows loitered around and scavenged scraps left by the diners while kids clambered fearlessly, if recklessly, up and down the rocks.
The scene was simply awesome and it seemed to me that whether the Skywalk eventually turns out to be an enduring success or a monumental miscalculation, it will never be able to match the ultimate marvel of natural engineering – the Grand Canyon itself.