Hayesville, OR Outdoor Activities

The Oregon Garden gives horticulture habitués the opportunity to fully discover the floral kingdom with more than 20 specialty gardens. The grounds bloom with horticultural rarities and aesthetic scenery, such as a sprawling, 400-year-old signature oak and an alluring collection of miniature conifers. In the Pet Friendly Garden, pups frolic around nontoxic plants, and in the Children's Garden youngsters can explore features such as dinosaur-bone digs and a real hobbit house.

The Oregon Garden also lodges the historic Gordon House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building in the state and the only one open to the public throughout the Pacific Northwest. The garden's retail nursery furnishes a crib and changing table for baby plants and also cultivates vegetation all year round, selling perennials, shrubs, annuals, and veggies.

HydroSports Dive and Travel’s certified scuba instructors tap into their enthusiasm for all things aquatic to train nascent sea explorers with thorough diving instruction. The staff formulate a roster of classes that includes a wide range of lessons, from basic tutorials that introduce essential skills to advanced courses that yield open-water certification and the ability to recite Keats underwater.

In addition to classes, HydroSports' onsite shop packs an arsenal of equipment from top-quality brands and ample rental gear for self-arranged dives. HydroSports Dive and Travel’s trainers also organize frequent diving excursions amid marine wonderlands such as Palau, Santa Catalina Island, and Poseidon's living room.

The sparkle of coal is a common sight in mineshafts, but no minerals have ever been found in Warpaint International's mineshaft. Instead, the splatter of fired paintballs covers the walls, just as it does in the newly renovated, 20,000-square-foot arena's other three play zones. Within the exciting facility, competitors can navigate the small homes of an indoor shantytown and crouch behind stacked barrels in an otherwise sparse mock-hotel.

JT SplatMaster Paintball offers a gentler version of paintball for younger players who have outgrown Extreme Contact Face Painting. And Warpaint International has partnered with Sniperz Den Paintball in St. Paul to host once-a-month events on more than 50 acres ripe for play, including seven bases replete with flags. Players can also stop by the full pro shop to stock up on markers, paintballs, and other related apparel.

RR Saddle Club helps connect humans without the means to own horses with equine friends and also hopes to rescue horses that are stuck in unsavory situations. Nestled in the heart of the Santiam River Valley, the club's barn houses gentle steeds who carry riders on guided trail rides through the club’s 200-acre property, past wildflower-strewn meadows, into the foothills of mountains, and through thickets of fir and maple. Visitors can also schedule pony parties for youngsters or sign up for lessons to learn the basics of riding and how to signal horses to trot, canter, and fly.

Tucked away in the foothills of the Western Cascade Mountains, Camp Dakota Camping & Adventures flouts the constraints of gravity with high-flying adventures that test participants’ skills, stamina, and propensity to scream at high altitudes. Suspended steel ziplines whiz above the forest canopy as squirrels wave from nearby branches and passing meadowlarks pause for fist bumps. Teamwork trumps individual heroics on the high-ropes course, whose elevated, threaded obstacles sway precariously above the distant ground.

The aerial odyssey doesn’t stop there. Instructors supply safety harnesses and words of encouragement before leading the way to a vertical rock-climbing wall. Replete with slim footholds and perturbed mountain goats, the wall poses a challenge to climbers of all abilities, who take solace in the added safety of fully automated belays.

Since 1990, Kandice Champion's expert tutelage has propelled horses into being victorious in dressage, hunt seat, and Western show rings. Champion Training Center's expansive facility accommodates participants of all ages and skill sets as they enrich their riding prowess atop trained school horses during daytime, evening, and weekend sessions led by Kandice and her squad of qualified teachers. In addition to lessons, Champion Training Center supplies devoted equestrians with horses for sale and equips riders with new and used accoutrements, including saddles, boots, and equine tiaras.