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How good are you at facing difficult situations? Putting “mind over matter” to do what needs to be done, no matter how challenging? I have an adventure that will certainly test — X-tremely test — your mental stamina.

I just came back from Georgia (right outside of Atlanta) where I and two friends took this X-Treme test. It challenged our beings down to the very core. When we were done, we knew what we were made of. It took our fears (and make no mistake, at least one of us had significant fears) and reduced them to nothing. Then, after 3 hours, we looked back and said, “We did that?!!!” We did indeed and lived to tell about the adventure.

It was the Canopy Tree Flight at Historic Banning Mills Resort and Team-Building Center in Whitesburg, Ga. But this “flight” was much more than a zipline — way more than we anticipated. It was about 3 hours of white-knuckle challenge. When we talk about it today to our friends and co-workers, the thought of what we did makes their stomachs flutter. It was fun.

Maybe you’re an adventurer, an X-Treme sport nut. Maybe you can’t even remember the first time you traversed a zip line. But Jamie, Loralee and I are not really X-Treme — well at least we weren’t X-Treme until we took the zip line “plunge” in Georgia. Now we think of ourselves as pretty X-Treme, I guess. We went out to Historic Banning Mills specifically to put ourselves to the test — the Tree Canopy Tour looked like fun, but could we really do it?

Together with our two Canopy Guides, and two folks who came up from Alabama just to traverse this particular canopy tour, we started up the first flight of stairs of the 60-foot tower. We stopped there, where we geared up in our harnesses and got some instruction on what we were about to experience. Then we headed up to the top. (I’ve never climbed one of these towers in its entirety as my knees would always knock! Not this time, I was mentally ready.)

Oh, it was high. We learned how to connect our lines on the deck and then, when we were ready, move our lines one by one onto the zip line. One guide zipped out first to meet us at the next station. Loralee was the first novice to go. It was scary. We were on a 60-ft. tower, but we were looking out over a vast open space at least 100 feet above the ground. Loralee seemed to do very well and it gave me confidence. When I got myself hooked to the zip line, I simply took a deep breath, eyes wide open so as not to miss anything, tucked my feet up and zipped off over the treetops.

(We were relieved to discover that we didn’t have to jump off the tower, which would have been scarier.) How cool. How beautiful. How quick! This first zip line had a ground landing.

It was absolutely a thrilling ride!

The zip line we had just traversed was fun. I kept my eyes open. I took in all the beautiful scenery. And I landed on my feet. It went fast, but no butterflies or flip-flops in my stomach as the zip line was more horizontal than vertical. No big plunge as on a roller-coaster or bungee jump. Very, very fun. Then we discovered that the next several legs of the canopy tour did not involved flying in the air, but walking on air! Oh-h-h my!

We learned that the next step would literally be wooden slats strung out between wires about 60 feet in the air. For someone who can’t stand walking up a see-through stairway, this would be a challenge.

And it was.

Took a deep breath — really couldn’t have any hesitation as this was the only way to proceed. We all made it just fine. Over the next several legs of the tour, we encountered several more of these “wooden walkways in the sky” — each more challenging and difficult than the last. The slats are 2-3 feet apart. We needed some serious flexibility to traverse them and luckily, we had it.

The third leg of the mid-air tour was to be done on a high wire — a single wire traversing 60-80 feet of open air. Oh, we had side wires to hold on to and we did for dear life. But it turned out to be something we just stepped out and did, although quite carefully.

ll in all, it was a real rush. Very fun and something we’d all do again. And it’s an adventure I’d highly recommend for a family or group of friends to enjoy together.

Don’t let this high wire thing scare you. It’s really easy — you just take it slow. And remember, nothing we did on this tree canopy tour was done without safety harnesses being attached to an overhead wire at all times. Nobody tripped. Nobody fell. But no one would have fallen because of the two safety ropes from our harnesses to the overhead line. That kind of security gives you the guts to do most anything!

Tips:

• If you think this looks like fun, then go for it!

• Do a few stretching exercises a week or two before your trip. Flexibility really helps.

• This is a virtually age-less adventure. Our guide, Luke, said the oldest person taking the tour was 70. It’s great to mix up the ages, as we did with our group of 7 (including guides). Ages went from 18 to boomer — and everyone had fun and cheered each other on.