Metro

WATCH: Tethered Wallenda walks wire across Niagara Falls

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — In an amazing televised stunt watched by thousands at the scene, daredevil Nik Wallenda successfully tightrope walked across Niagara Falls on Friday night.

Wallenda crossed from New York to Canada on a two-inch (five-centimeter) steel cable about 200 feet (60m) over the thundering cascades, winds and mists of the famous Falls.

The crossing took only about 25 minutes, far less time than expected, with Wallenda fist-pumping and almost running to the finish. He kneeled briefly on the cable before jumping down at about 10:40pm local time to acknowledge the thousands of fans who had turned out on the Canadian side.

The 33-year-old, who in a fitting piece of theater presented his passport for local officials, then fulfilled a promise by calling his grandmother to let her know he had made it safely across.

The event was broadcast on the ABC network with a five-second delay in case of disaster but the dangerous crossing went off without a hitch.

There had been speculation that Wallenda would remove his safety harness — which the network had required he wear — once he started the crossing but this proved unfounded.

The acrobat had a two-way radio and a small earpiece, and was able to communicate with his father, Terry Troffer, during the stunt, AFP reported.

“My God, it’s incredible, it’s breathtaking, I feel really well,” Wallenda said soon after starting his quest.

He later reported being “very wet.”

“This is so physical, not only mental but physical,” Wallenda said. “Fighting the wind isn’t easy. I feel my hands are going numb.”

Wallenda’s father gave him words of encouragement throughout the walk.

“You’re doing good. Take your time,” said Troffer, which ABC described as the event safety coordinator.

To help ensure his safety, Wallenda’s mother, Delilah, specially made his moccasins with suede and leather bottoms to guard against slipping if the wire got wet.

However, after his crossing, Wallenda said it was the wind that had been the most challenging aspect.

Wallenda, who said he has dreamed of crossing the Falls since he first visited them at age six, became the first person to walk from one side to the other since 1896.

The first crossing was made in 1859 by a French acrobat who used the nom-de-wire The Great Blondin and made multiple trips across at a location further downstream, performing such tricks as pushing a wheelbarrow across and carrying his manager from one side to the other.

But Blondin performed under tamer conditions than Wallenda, who will cross directly in front of Horseshoe Falls and its strong winds and mist.

It is a stunt that fits seamlessly into his family tradition of acrobatic derring-do going back more than 200 years.

Karl Wallenda, Nik’s great-grandfather and the patriarch of the modern Wallendas, performed with his wife, brother and a family friend in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the act eventually became known as the Flying Wallendas.

But tragedy struck the troupe several times — when a seven-person pyramid they were performing in Detroit in 1962 collapsed, killing two, and when Karl himself died in 1978 while trying to cross a tightrope between two hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The family carried on, however, and Nik made his debut at two, dressed as a clown, and began walking the tightrope at four.

He proposed to his circus performer wife Erendira while kneeling on a highwire in Montreal in 1999.