7 of the World’s Most Unique Nature Observation Decks
Looking at some of the most extreme deck and dock construction, the following is a list of the world’s most unique outdoor observation decks. All provide jaw-dropping views of our natural world. Some of them will get your adrenaline pumping as well.
Great Wall of China
Arguably, the greatest set of observation decks in the world, the Great Wall of China took 2,000 years to build and snakes over a distance of 5,500 miles. In a really great travel article by the Los Angeles Times, an author explains that the best portions of the Great Wall to carefully climb are the portions of “wild wall” where the wall is in disrepair and crumbling.
Tour guides will supply transportation, countryside lunches, and hikes that take tourists up these sections of the wall, rain or shine or snow. In one of these wild sections of the wall, the author described finding the remains of two brick walls that ran parallel, each 24 feet tall, joined by being filled in with dirt and rock with a layer of brick on the top for a walkway. Spare guard stations occur at each quarter mile. In some locations, tourists can camp overnight on the wall.
Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
A trip to Vancouver, Canada will afford you the opportunity to hike high above Vancouver forests on a series of suspension bridges. According to The Metro Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau, the first bridge was constructed of hemp spanning 450 feet, suspended 230 feet above a river canyon.
The 27-acre park now has a few more attractions, including Cliffwalk, where visitors negotiate bridges, stairs, and platforms above the river canyon. Cliffwalk is suspended at only 16 points in the granite cliff. Treetops Adventure is another sky trail system that is 100 feet in the air in the Douglas Fir tree canopy. In order to make the sky trail environmentally friendly, a compression system is used around each tree to suspend the trial, with no bolts or nuts. Treetop has viewing platforms and seven suspension bridges interconnected between the trees.
Aurland Lookout
Sitting 2,000 feet in elevation above one of Norway’s largest fjords, this is basically half a bridge. It juts out from a cliff and ends with a thin pane of glass overlooking the massive fjord. This structure is 14 feet in width and extends out 110 feet horizontally before it makes a downward curve that provides an illusion of falling. The lookout is made almost entirely of wood with a simple pipe handrail.
Grand Canyon Skywalk
The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a cantilevered bridge that extends out over the Grand Canyon in Eagle Point, Arizona. The Skywalk is a tourist attraction that generates income for the Hualapai Native American tribe. Its U-shaped walkway is glass and has glass siding that can withstand high winds. The walkway extends out from the side of the canyon at 4,770 feet in elevation over the Colorado River below at 1,160 in elevation. Tourists must leave their cameras in a locker but can purchase professional photos in the gift shop. In addition to the gift shop, Eagle Point has an amphitheater that offers Native American dances and a Native American village. In the future, the tribe hopes to add a museum, a VIP lounge, a few restaurants and a movie theater.
Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, although it is only a 2 and a half-mile hike, the trail to the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout in the Tahoe National Forest in Northern California ascends 2,400 feet of elevation to the summit and lookout that tops out at 8,587 feet of elevation. The last portion of the hike takes you up very steep sets of metal stairs that are attached to the top pinnacle. The stairs rattle and move a bit as you climb. At one location, the stairs float over the air, making it hard to look down.
If you can get to the top of the stairs and have not gotten too dizzy on the cantilevered steps, you can circle around the lookout on a grated walkway that allows you to look straight down through your feet into the canyons below. You will have a view of the Sierra Nevada with the twin Upper and Lower Sardine Lakes below and the tiny town of Sierra City on the other side. You will see the Yuba River Canyon, French Meadows Reservoir and Bowman Lakes. In the backdrop, you will see the Crystal Basin that John Muir called the “Range of Light.”
Iguazu Falls, Paseo Garganata del Diablo
For those who prefer a much more tame, but spectacular adventure, the border between Brazil and Argentina boasts the world’s largest waterfall system. Waterfalls cascade from both sides of the Iguazu River at heights from 200 to 270 feet, 275 drops in total and 1.7 miles wide. The trail, Paseo Garganta del Diablo, is a series of walkways that takes tourists directly over the falls that are the highest and deepest. There are other walkways along with the forests of the Argentinian side.
Top of Tirol Viewing Platform –
Tyrol, Austria has a viewing platform located at the top of Mount Isidor. Visitors can take a gondola up from the Stubai Glacier ski resort that is at about 10,000 feet of elevation and walk about five minutes beyond the top of the gondola platform out to the top of the mountain. There, they will find a viewing platform that takes the visitors from the summit and out about 30 more horizontal feet into thin air. The platform has a view of over 109 peaks that are over 9,000 feet in elevation. The viewing platform is made of Corten steel.
All of these structures, whether made of hemp, wood, steel or aluminum, are examples of extreme deck and dock construction, and have been designed to withstand nature’s fury. All provide visitors a unique vista into some of the most beautiful places in the natural world