Tightrope daredevil tackles volcano

“The King of the High Wire” took on his highest, longest challenge yet. ABC on Wednesday aired Nik Wallenda’s successful trip across the crater of the active Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua on live television. His wife, Erendira, also performed aerial ballet on a wire suspended over the volcano.

How do you practice for that? Wallenda prepared at his home in Florida by practicing in a smokey room, with his eyes closed, wearing a gas mask and goggles and using wind machines. His team couldn’t put up the cables on the volcano in advance because the gases would corrode the wires, he said in a January interview. The seventh-generation acrobat traversed Times Square in New York last year.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read about how Wallenda uses his stunts to proclaim his Christian faith.