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Nik Wallenda jumps during a training session before his historic high wire walk

Tim Boyles/Getty

The Florida aerialist completed a tightrope walk on a 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River Gorge on the Navajo Nation near the Grand Canyon. He wasn’t wearing a harness as he traversed a quarter mile in the nail-biting feat that aired on the Discovery channel.

Wallenda wore a microphone and two cameras, one looking down on the dry Little Colorado River bed and one facing straight ahead. His leather shoes had elk-skin soles that helped him keep a grip on the steel cable as he moved across.

The 34-year-old Wallenda is a seventh-generation high-wire artist and is part of the famous “Flying Wallendas” circus family. Sunday’s stunt comes a year after he traversed Niagara Falls earning a seventh Guinness world record.

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.

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.

In preparing the article has benefited: people.com