Sunday 19 August 2007

Tree top trekking, Horseshoe Valley, ON

Gord and I went tree top trekking today with Single Horizons at Horseshoe Valley (about an hour north of Toronto).

First we started off with a safety check and some lessons.



The lessons were no problem because we were only a couple feet off the ground!

I was fine climbing the ladder to get to the top of the tree (about 25 feet up). But then I was terrified! I seriously considered climbing back down.

But I'd driven 1.5 hours to get there and had paid $50 to do this! And I was anchored onto a cable if I slipped.

When I got to the end of the first "activity" (there were about six "activities" in the first course), my legs and arms were shaking! I hugged the tree for a bit.

There are three courses and I did the first two. The scariest part of the second one was the vine swing (you had to swing from one tree to another via a rope like Tarzan). That terrified me!

There is a zipline at the end of each course. I figured the ziplines would be the freakiest ... but they weren't. There were a hoot!
With the zipline for the second one, I clipped onto the cable too far back so couldn't move. Not thinking, to get going forward I pulled on the cable with my left hand ... the pulley holding me ran over my thumb and trapped it. Ouch! I pulled back behind me on the cable with my right hand to free myself and the pulley ran over some fingers on my right hand. Ouch!

But at least I was free and off I went towards the netting. My hands and fingers were dirty and bleedy so I had some first aid administered. I'm going to have some nice bruises tomorrow!

Though it had gotten less scary, I'd had enough.

Gord did the third course (longer than the first two) and here are some pictures of him: 

At the netting at the end of the last zipline
We walked to the Crazy Horse Saloon at the Resort. Gord had lunch and some celebatory beer. I passed but drank lots of water (so stuck to the detox and my points).

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks like a total hoot!

I'm with ya tho - two feet off the ground seems good enough to me! hehe

metro mama said...

There is one of these in Haliburton; I've always wanted to try it!

Laural Dawn said...

Oh! I love that. I've always wanted to try one of those courses. You're a brave woman :)

Isabel said...

You have more courage than I do, cause there is no way you could get me up there.

ALthough, after watching a few videos, the zip line looks fun.

Artpuppy said...

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!
You have a lot of courage, I would have never been able to do that... :)

Jodi_Lee said...

NO WAY!! ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!! I can't believe you did that!! Crazy...absolutely crazy, woman!

Anonymous said...

Sounds a looks great! I just love those kind of adventures and challenging the nature! Like you said about my animal post: it takes so much stress out of your life!

Trish said...

Where was this? This sounds like a LOT of fun :)