Route 66

Horseshoe Bend, Arizona at sunset is an amazing sight and dangerous.

This has to be one of the craziest tourist attractions I’ve ever seen—not because of the location, but because of the tourists.

The canyon drops 1,000 feet straight down, and there are no guard rails, so you can edge as close to the precipice as your nerve allows. What blew my mind was watching busloads of tourists flock to the canyon’s edge, snap selfies, and take turns posing precariously.

But here’s the kicker: unbeknownst to these selfie addicts, the Bend's lip is mostly hollow sandstone and much of it is quite unstable. I discovered this firsthand when I lay on the edge extending my camera on a monopod and noticed that tapping the sandstone produced a hollow sound.

Horseshoe Bend, Arizona at sunset is an amazing sight and dangerous.

This has to be one of the craziest tourist attractions I’ve ever seen—not because of the location, but because of the tourists.

The canyon drops 1,000 feet straight down, and there are no guard rails, so you can edge as close to the precipice as your nerve allows. What blew my mind was watching busloads of tourists flock to the canyon’s edge, snap selfies, and take turns posing precariously.

But here’s the kicker: unbeknownst to these selfie addicts, the Bend's lip is mostly hollow sandstone and much of it is quite unstable. I discovered this firsthand when I lay on the edge extending my camera on a monopod and noticed that tapping the sandstone produced a hollow sound.