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'You're about 80 feet high," instructor Jamie Robertson shouts. "Don't look down!"

I look down. Robertson has broken my concentration. And although tall and muscular, he now looks like a dwarfed squirrel on the ground. Holy crap.

Still, I can do this. I can climb this tree. I even asked its permission.

Along with telling the tree your name and hugging it, it's part of the climbing ritual here in Wakefield, Que. I would rather say all that stuff in my head (alone, maybe, but with someone else watching?), but Robertson makes me do it anyway.

And that's okay. I'm doing whatever he says. He is, after all, the guy holding the rope of my rock-climbing harness as I scale a 40-metre-tall, 12-storey white pine.

At first, that simply means using a ladder to reach low branches. But now I'm climbing actual limbs on this 200-year-old tree, one after the next, remembering Robertson's rule: Always keep three points — either one foot and two hands, or two feet and one hand — on the wood.

I wish I had kept my eyes on the tree too. My heart is now racing. Possibly with terror.

But I take a moment to refocus. And that's when I finally look at the tree I'm clutching and get acquainted with it for real. It's a gorgeous old crone, sticky and fragrant with pine sap, full of life and warm to the touch.

I also realize something surprising: I'm not actually scared. Instead, I feel euphoria. And I feel weirdly safe up here. I climbed trees as a kid — and when I was 20 I once spent three days camped inside a hollowed-out redwood tree in California — but surely those experiences aren't enough to explain my comfort.

It must be ancestral memory at work. For millions of years, trees were our refuge from predators. Perhaps it's all encoded in our DNA. As Robertson says, "Every person who climbs this tree has some sort of profound, life-enhancing experience."

A former high-rise window installer, Robertson runs a nature and tree-climbing business called Wild Adventures in the woods about a half-hour north of Ottawa. In the past four years, he has harnessed everyone from foreign ambassadors posted in Ottawa to members of the Swiss national ski team to Ontario school kids — as well as a woman battling throat cancer.

"Trees have healing energy," he says. "And the climbers themselves feel energized and powerful at the top, as if they've overcome something really huge."

Perhaps that's why tree climbing is gaining popularity. At Tree Top Trekking in Barrie, Ont., climbing bookings have tripled in the past three years. New Tribe, an Oregon company that sells equipment for recreational tree climbing, has sold almost 1,500 tree-climbing saddles this year — up 34 per cent from 2003.

And interest is expected to keep growing. Peter Jenkins, the founder of an Atlanta-based organization called Tree Climbing International, predicts that in less than 10 years recreational tree climbing — or what he calls "vertical meditation" — will eclipse both rock climbing and caving.

So where to get in on the action?

While tree-climbing outfits are still in their infancy, Tree Top Trekking is a good place to start. Located at Horseshoe Resort, the operator not only straps people into harnesses for climbing courses adapted to age, height and strength, it also offers 70 different team-building "tree games," where people move between trees on bridges, ropes and swings.

"Interest is massive," manager Mike Wake says. "We're booked solid every weekend. People just want to be in the trees."

In British Columbia, meanwhile, there's Tree Climbing Canada. Founded by Michelle Morris and her husband — who taught themselves to climb from a handbook a few years ago — the volunteer group facilitates climbs in the lower mainland outside Vancouver. While there are only 20 members so far, Morris says interest is quickly building: "We're just at the taking-off point out here."

Part of the appeal might be the economy of climbing. "Being up in the canopy of a tree gives one a feeling of separation from the civilized world that is out of proportion with the actual physical distance," says Brad Dietrich of Port Alberni, B.C., who climbs every weekend with a friend. "Climbing 30 metres up into the canopy gives one a similar feeling to hiking 30 kilometres into untouched wilderness.

"A feeling common among tree climbers is the wonder that you are the very first person ever to be in a particular place; you see different flora and fauna up in the canopy, and get a different perspective, like watching birds flying around below you."

Climbing is also accessible. It's not an adrenaline sport requiring the stamina and nerve of rock climbing. And according to Jenkins — an avid rock climber and certified arborist — the risks are more controlled. There are no falling rocks. And the rope is to help climbers ascend, not used as a backup in case of a fall. The real danger, experienced climbers say, is less plummeting to your death than stumbling onto a hornet's nest or an ant colony.

In Wakefield, Robertson even feels it is safe enough to strap little kids into harnesses — including my five-year-old son, Quinn, who climbed to the top of a 12-metre-tall pine and wants to try a higher one. "Kids need a wild place to play and explore that isn't a park," Robertson says. "All kids are natural tree climbers."

He also tells me a lot more women than men sign up for tree-climbing instruction.

"Guys figure they can climb a tree on their own any day," he says. "But they [can't]. I had a dentist here last week who literally froze about 20 feet up. He suddenly had a flashback to his mother holding him at the top of the Peace Tower when he was little, thinking she was going to throw him off."

After coming back down for a moment, though, the dentist climbed back up again. He hesitated at the 20-foot freezing mark, but then kept on going. "He was ecstatic after," Robertson says.

Which is how I feel right now. I'm finally at the tip of this mighty Goliath. I practically had to do gymnastics to get this high, negotiating branches that weren't within easy reach. But here I am, on top of the world, swaying with the tree in the breeze, feeling its quiet strength. I feel 12 again. I love this tree.

And I love the view. From up here, I can see the Gatineau River as it winds its way to the Ottawa River, the surrounding mountains of the Canadian Shield, a circling hawk almost close enough to touch and other white pines rising above the canopy, emerging triumphantly like lone emerald-green stars.

Then, far off, I hear a voice calling me. It's Robertson, wondering what I'm doing. "Staying up here," I shout down. "Staying for good." Laurie Gough's latest book is Kiss the Sunset Pig.

PACK YOUR BAGS

ORGANIZED CLIMBS

WILD ADVENTURES 613-863-4667; www.wildadventures.ca. This Wakefield-based tour operator runs climbs year-round. Climbs cost about $60.

TREE TOP TREKKING 888-733-8679; www.treetoptrekking.com. About 15 minutes from Barrie at Horseshoe Resort, Tree Top features climbing as well as 70 tree platforms, 11 zip lines, climbing nets, footbridges, Tarzan ropes and swinging bridges. Courses take about three to four hours and cost $49 a person.

VOLUNTEER CLIMBING

TREE CLIMBING CANADA www.treeclimbingcanada.com. Located in the lower mainland outside Vancouver, this volunteer organization hosts free climbing events and has plans for teaching climbing in the works.

TREE CLIMBERS INTERNATIONAL 404-377-3150; www.treeclimbing.com. Based in Atlanta, this organization connects would-be climbers with instructors all over North America, teaches courses and certifies guides.