A TREEsort for the whole family

By Jennifer Margulis
Tidings Correspondent

The “Serendipitree,”one of Out ’N’ About’s Sylvan hideaways. Photos by Jennifer Margulis | For the Tidings

Cabins in the trees? The brochure for Out ’n’ About Treesorts in Tikilma made the place sound intriguing. “A lot of people stop here on their way to the coast,” said owner Michael Garnier, who graduated from SOU (when it was still called SOC) with a degree in psychology and who used to commute to Ashland from Cave Junction. His extravaganza of treesorts is located down a dusty gravel road in Tikilma, and Garnier told me it would take an hour and a half to get there.

So we piled the three kids in the car and drove out the Redwood Highway. After the sprawl and RV sales lots of Grants Pass, the drive gets really beautiful. Tall triangles of pine line the roadway, green foothills bring your gaze to the larger mountains behind them, and the highway holds the promise of the ocean to which it leads. We wound past an herb farm, a country house with a peace sign out front, turned onto the gravel road, rounded a horse paddock, and we were there.

The zuzz of an electric saw indicating construction, a handwritten welcome sign, and a bevy of excited dogs underfoot made Out ’N’ About seem more like a hippie camp than the B&B it’s billed as. But once we got a glimpse of the tree houses, which are ingeniously designed constructions made of natural wood, we realized we had come to a magical place.

The girls jumped out of the car and ventured under the canopy, where we saw the first odd little wood-colored house up in a big tree: improbably tiny, rambling, on three levels following the branching trunk. With a sturdy wooden staircase bending its way up to a tiny deck cantilevered out from the front door, it looked like little elves had made it. It was like something from a fairy tale — the Three Bears’ house, or Baba Yaga’s hut up on chicken legs.

Turning around, we found ourselves surrounded by such tree houses, hard to pick out right away because they were all at different levels and blended in so nicely with the forest. Ours was a large teepee 10 feet up on a platform (the “Treepee”), and there was also a set of three tiny cabins bridged together over two trees called “Swiss Family,” a magnificent piece of luxury architecture called “The Suite,” and more as you headed farther into the trees.

At the center of the cabins sits a large wooden house where Garnier lives, and in which a full breakfast (ours consisted of cereal, eggs, quiche, casserole, toast and fresh muffins) is prepared every morning. Right outside, a series of stairs and octagonal decks climb up a huge Douglas fir, leading to a network of catwalks and platforms worthy of Indiana Jones. At the end of two of these is one of the highest tree houses, 35 feet off the ground. To get to the “Forestree” you walk up the spiral staircase and down a long suspension bridge, hung between the trees. You haul your stuff up in a bucket by a rope and pulley.

Athena di Properzio of Ashland runs along the suspension bridge, 35 feet off the ground.

“This is the type of thing I like,” said Kristin Paris, a high school guidance counselor from Pacific Grove, Calif., who was staying with her family in the “Serendipitree.” “The pond and the horses and the ropes course… it’s really nice.” Her 10-year-old son, Max, who had just finished making a tile mosaic of his cat, Spongebob (whom they had to give away because he was allergic to it), nodded his agreemšent.

“We love doing this kind of stuff with our kids,” said Teresa Adkins, visiting with her family from Whidbey Island, Wash., “camping and family fun stuff. We’re just in awe. This is just cool.”

When Garnier, who says he has too many horses and dogs to count, first built a cabin and invited people to it, no one came. But when he had the idea of building tree houses — like the one he built for his five children when they ranged in age from 6 to 12 — he started attracting visitors.

“Everyone thought I was crazy,” he remembers, “but I built it and they came.” In fact, his tree house generated so much interest that he quickly built more. Now he has 10 units and is still expanding. All have electricity; some are equipped with toilets and running water.

Treesorts is open all year round. “Winter is the best time for couples to come,” says Garnier, who adds that this summer was completely booked by March and that he has been turning 10 to 15 people away a day. “There aren’t so many kids running around then. And if it’s raining, you can keep yourself occupied.”

Treesorts range in price from $100 to $180 per night. Additional “activitrees,” including horseback riding, arts and crafts (like making tile mosaics and tie-dyeing), the ropes course, and a guided tour of the tree houses, cost extra per person.