The world’s longest hanging pedestrian bridge opened Saturday in the Swiss Alps near the town of Zermatt. The structure measures 494 meters in length and hangs 85 meters above the Grabengufer ravine.
The Zermatt Tourist board claims it’s the world’s longest hanging bridge, although a similar bridge in Austria hangs 110m higher off the ground.
The bridge took ten weeks to construct and its cables alone weigh roughly 7,257 kg (15,998 lbs), according to the Zermatt tourism board.
SwissRope, the company responsible for the structure, included a special dampener with an anti-swing feature to prevent any unfortunate accidents with hikers experiencing a sudden case of vertigo, reports Stuttgarter-Zeitung.
The bridge is located along the Europaweg trail, a two-day hiking route between Zermatt and Grachen that offers a spectacular view of the 4,478 meter-high Matterhorn.
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It replaces a similar bridge that was closed in 2010 due to rockfall damage, which forced hikers to climb 500m down into the valley and back up again.
