I'm sitting with my eyes closed, legs dangling, which means I can't see guide Todd Goss 723 feet across the temporary zip line that spans the Green Valley Gap, but I can hear his signal. I'm trying to remember how relaxed I felt earlier stretched out under a willow tree on the spa patio, receiving one of Green Valley's signature treatments, the Rapunzel, a hot-oil treatment and scalp massage.

Now just a 3-minute truck commute away from the spa, I'm seated on the edge of this redrock canyon. With my eyes open, I'm no longer feeling calm. Scared would be a more accurate description.

I'm cradled in a harness, which is strapped to a cable, my hands tightly gripping the contraption's wooden handles. What are these for? I had asked Goss just before he swooped off my cliff. "A place to park your hands so you don't try to reach up and touch the cable, which would burn your skin," he said matter-of-factly.

"It wouldn't be good business for me if you got hurt," he told me earlier, and it was his no-spin bluntness that made me trust him.

I like a good massage and a mountaintop hike as much as any vacationeer, but I also like to believe that I'm hardy, not your typical luxury spa person. Apparently, I represent the new demographic of guests that Green Valley is targeting with flexible stays and "recession depression" room rates.

After all, the spa's offerings of canyoneering, geocaching treasure hunts and zip-line adventures are a far cry from the weight-loss regimen that sparked Alan Coombs and his wife, Carole, to launch the place back in 1985.

In order to attract spouses, they added a tennis program and hired on-call golf pros. "Twenty-five years ago, you couldn't get a male to admit he was going to a spa," Coombs recalls. "Trying to get them to take a massage was out of the question. If you looked in the yellow pages, you'd find 'spa' under 'hot tubs.' "

In the industry, Green Valley is noted for its array of outdoor hikes, as well as more traditional fitness classes. Recently it's also expanded its wellness programs, which include cooking classes, life-coaching sessions, labyrinth walks and aura readings. New this year is the opportunity to spend an afternoon communing with wild mustangs.

Linda DeFrino, of New Jersey,raves about Green Valley, which she has visited some seven or eight times over the past 15 years. "I introduced my husband to it," she says, "and now he's hooked on it, too." Rather than trying other resorts, the couple returns regularly to Green Valley "because there's not a reason I can think of to not go back," DeFrino says.

Nine of the Coombses' blended family of 12 siblings help run what has grown into an $8 million family business. That's unusual, even for a family business founded in Utah. "They birthed it, literally," says general manager Mike Rich, who isn't a relative.

One innovation is a spin-off company that manufactures skin-care and bath products. Made from desert plants, Green Valley's products - with names such as Sand, a body scrub, and Ashes, a body wash - are also marketed under private labels to other spas and hotels.

Then there's Coombs' latest brainchild, a nonprofit called Fit Kids, which he plans as a partnership with the health-care industry to tackle childhood obesity. That also seems like an unusual sideline for a luxury spa.

But I'm here not to think about losing weight but to face what's in front of me: my little-bitty fear of heights. And to consider the bigger question, which is understanding what seems like the spa's quirkiest juxtaposition, the mix of luxury treatments with more hard-core outdoor adventures.

Which brings me to the moment when I'm talking myself off a cliff. "All humans have a fear of jumping off a cliff," Goss tells me later on the phone. "And wisely so, because those who didn't, didn't reproduce."

The founder of St. George's Paragon Climbing, Goss has been working with Green Valley for 14 years, leading spa guests - whose fitness levels range from barely ambulatory to world-class - into the outdoors. The best part, Goss says, is watching participants' confidence grow over the course of a morning. "Often it feels really strange for me to have more belief in them than they do in themselves," he says. "And bringing them back dirty is really cool, too."

I close my eyes again, push my feet off the rock, and now I'm suspended 120 feet in the air. When I came to Green Valley this morning, I was expecting, maybe, to book a massage. This rush feels thrilling, better than I imagined. I glide forward on the zip line, and already I'm sad about how quickly this ride will end.

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* ELLEN FAGG can be contacted at ellenf@sltrib.com or 801-257-8621. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

Green Valley Resort and Spa

* GETTING THERE: Green Valley Resort and Spa is at 1871 W. Canyon View Drive, St. George, which is about a four-hour drive from Salt Lake City.

* RATES: For information on the spa's "recession depression" rates (through May 31), visit www.greenvalleyspa.com or call 800-237-1067.

* TODD GOSS: For information about Todd Goss' outdoor guiding company, visit www.paragonadventure.com or call 888-412-5462.