Wednesday, May 7, 2008

El Camino Del Ray -The Scariest Thing EVER



Since several of you (and I myself) expressed interest in what that death trap from hell actually is, here is the explaination of it that I got from Wikipedia...

El Caminito del Rey (English: The King's pathway) is a walkway or via ferrata, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to El Camino del Rey.

History
In 1901 it was obvious that the workers of the Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls needed a walkway to cross between the falls, to provide transport of materials, vigilance and maintenance of the channel. Construction of the walkway took four years; it was finished in 1905.

In 1921 the king Alfonso XIII crossed the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce and it became known by its present name.


In some places the walkway has collapsed. The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 ft) in width, and is over 700 feet (200 m) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall. Many people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years. After four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way into the walkway.

3 comments:

Jori said...

Thanks for posting that. I was wondering what the scoop was.

Jiles Pfamily said...

arrrgh this stresses me out so much I can't handle it!

alex dumas said...

I found a clip on YouTube that must have been close to the one you posted, and that is a trip. The adventurer in me thinks it would be exciting, but I don't think I could do it.