Don’t look down, I tell myself over and over. I am moving in painfully slow motion, placing one foot in the front of the other on the skinny steel cord between my toes. I try to focus on this cord, on my feet, but my eyes keep darting to the ground, 20 feet below.

It’s a beautiful spring day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing in the pine trees that surround Santa’s Village in Bracebridge. Thanks to the folks at the new Eaglecrest Aerial Park, I’m among these birds, halfway between two towering trees. I’m harnessed in and attached only by two carabiners to steel cords that shoot between the hundred-year-old pines.

As I approach my next feat, what they call the “wobbly bridge” — wooden planks that shift and shake the second I trust them with my weight — I feel my legs freezing up, and every logical thought is telling me to scream, get down and go home.

But there’s Benny, my expert climbing instructor for the afternoon, reassuring me from the adjacent tree. His encouraging cheers — “Keep it up! Keep it up!” — and his endless patience are proof I’m in good hands.

Finally, I step onto the platform, a wooden square cinched around the waist of the next tree. Benny congratulates me briefly, we swing around to the other side, clip onto a new set of cords, and it’s on to the next course.

As a girl who is terrified to even ride glass elevators in shopping malls, you’d think the “Ultimate Tree Climbing Adventure” wouldn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

But it’s wildly thrilling being up here, literally taking in a bird’s-eye view of the forest. I feel invigorated, adventurous, natural.

The Eaglecrest Aerial Park is the brainchild of Tony McQuilter, Milford Bay resident and veteran ice climber.

He says just about anyone can do it, and once you get the hang of it, you never want to come down.

As I draw closer and closer to the zip line finale of the course, I start to believe him. My excitement builds and the once-paralyzing fear falls away.

As the finishing touches are completed, the zip line hasn’t been inspected by the appropriate bodies — everything on this course has to be approved by a government-approved safety authority — so I’m greeted by a ladder to end my trip, and I’m relieved to be reunited with terra firma.

McQuilter tells me about his training in Europe, where there are hundreds of similar tree-climbing courses. When he returned to Canada, he opened his first “amusement park” in Quebec.

“There was a demand for it there,” he said. But a year ago, he realized he had to open a park right here in Muskoka. He hopes this will be the first of hundreds he can bring to Canada.

All levels of experience are welcome, as the course is progressive. You start on the ground and learn the ins and outs of carabiners — similar to popular keychain latches, but “of the lifesaving variety,” Benny tells me. In the beginning stages, you also learn the right way to fall — which, as I found out, is absolutely necessary.

McQuilter employs a few-dozen instructors like Benny, who guide climbers of every level, as they progress through the course.

“Each one of my guys must be able to do the course backwards,” he says. They’re also trained to do rescue repels — if a climber is absolutely stuck and refuses to move.

The park also offers night adventures, where each climber is equipped with a strong light attached to their helmet. “It’s pitch black and you’re climbing through tree tops,” said McQuilter. “How cool is that?”

He has big plans for the rest of the untouched trees throughout the park. In June, they’ll open a huge 350-foot zip line that crosses the Muskoka River. When McQuilter is done, most of the forest will be equipped with platforms and steel cords, and be an endless source of entertainment for thousands of visitors.

McQuilter estimates his new $200,000 park will bring in at least 7,000 more visitors to Muskoka each summer. He has signed the lease with Santa’s Village to be there for 10 years, and has high hopes.

“People are nuts about these adventures,” he says, his neck twisted upwards as he gazes at his creation. “They get addicted to it.”

“To me, it’s about giving back and allowing people to experience nature in this unique way. Also a percentage of ticket sales — which are just over $30 a person for a two-hour climb — will go to local environmental projects.”

He says he hopes to give every visitor a chance to revisit their childhood dream of climbing amongst the trees, and a new appreciation for nature.

“When you were a kid, isn’t that what life was all about? Climbing in trees and having a blast?”