Your Life Out on a Limb!
There are many educational, and adventurous, vacation sites in Southern Oregon, but only one where you can, lit-treely, "go out on a limb"... have so much fun and learn something while you're there.
The internationally famous Out 'n' About Treesort has branched out once again, and has added the Treehouse Institute of Takilma, a high school that hangs from the branches in an oak grove in Takilma. The picturesque little valley is nestled in the south west corner of Oregon among the Siskiyou Mountains outside of Cave Junction, just below the widerness headwaters of the East Fork Illinois River.
The Treesort and Institute features Treehouse accommodations for kids of all ages. If you come to learn, relax, romance or just have fun there is plenty for all. Out'n'About is an veritable treehouse wonderland. There is a total of 18 different treehouses, platforms, forts, seven swinging bridges (8' to 32' off the ground and 12' to 90' long), five swings, 20 flights of stairs, four ladders and a ropes course with a 160' long zip line as a warm up to the Giant Zip. On the ground there is also a fresh water swimming pool fed by the East Fork Illinois River, a performance stage, bath house pavilion, big campfire site and barbecues (to mention but a few facilitrees). The treesort has 36 private acres backed up to National Forest wilderness with 16 horses, two rocking horses, 5 dogs, 1 cat, and 8 chickens (at last count) running around.
Out'n'About is a truly unique place. Part of it's uniqueness has to do with that it is a home grown and based business. There are no locks on the treehouse doors. It is not the Ramada or Hilton in the trees, but is a genuine four star Treesort. It took eight years of hard fought legal battles with Josephine county officials before they finally recognized the soundness of our designs and gave us our needed permits to be legal. We were ordered to shut down our treehouse rentals several times, and at peak pitch actualy ordered to tear down the treehouses at one point. So to keep the business going we sold very expensive one of a kind dated t-shirts- "Treeshirts" as we call them (t-shirts with silk screenings of a favorite treehouse on it). We could not allow the general public to officialy stay in the treehouses... but we could invite our friends. So everybody who came had to become our friend, one of the now many "Tree Musketeers". People from all over the world would treeserve a date to be put on a certain tree-shirt. they would then come here on that date, get their treeshirt and become a Tree Musketeer, our friend, spend the night in a treehouse and Michael would sign their shirt. We no longer have to sell shirts to earn money (but they're still available) and do not have to limit guests to our "friends", but we still endeavor to do so. So please feel free to come spend the night, become a Treemusketeer (therefore our friend), and if you decide to get a treeshirt Michael will still sign and date it if you like!
To check out the accommodations go to Root Costs. The Tree Room Schoolhouse Suite (which includes a bathroom, kitchenette and "sitting to ponder area"), the Swiss Family Complex (a pair of treehouses connected by a swinging bridge), the treezebo (our tallest residential treehouse, sleeps two to five, with toilet and sink), the Forestree (like the treezebo but with full walls), the Peacock Perch (designed for, and best enjoyed by two, very romantic), the Treepee (18' tipi in the trees), the Treeloon (sleeps four with a sink), connected by a swinging bridge to the Cavaltree (styled as a cavalry fort in the trees), the Serendipitree (for two adults or two adults and two small children). Also available is the Cabintree (a deluxe "on the ground" gem accompanied by an open air treehouse).
The Treehouse Institute , established over the summer of 1996, is the only place in the world that offers avocational instruction in basic engineering, design and construction methods for building treehouses. There are also plenty of other things to learn and have fun with here. We are like a summer camp for families.The courses are tailored to family enjoyment. Our staff teaches a ropes course, horse back riding, rafting and treehouse construction, all are easily arranged. The craft courses are taught by local artists on site here. The ones that require the shortest amount of time to arrange are the tie-die, stain-glass, whittling and water-color classes. The performance stage is used by kids quite often, but not so much as the organized classes. (Summer thematic school sessions, in majors and alltreenut majors, run from two to four days.)
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