Treetop Adventures, located 15 minutes north of Sault Ste. Marie on Highway 17, is now closed for business.
“We have a growing family with three kids now. My wife and I both work outside of Treetop, and like any business, it’s a lot of time and work. When we’re both working two other jobs (along with Treetop)...you want to spend time with family,” said Taylor Delarosbil, who co-owns the popular outdoor recreational facility with his wife Kasondra, speaking to SooToday Wednesday.
“We’re definitely going to be interested in selling.”
The business property itself has been family-owned for some time and won’t be up for sale, but Treetop Adventures equipment will be, Delarosbil said.
“We have a good setup. It’s the perfect business if you’re looking to do something on your own and be your own boss with a couple of staff...everything you need to start a paintball business, and the treetop equipment, our office stuff, can be taken down and put into a new area of the bush, a new environment. We’ll probably start selling things off one by one.”
“(In addition, with most businesses on shutdown due to COVID-19) we don’t even know when things were going to start back up,” Delarosbil said.
“We definitely could’ve opened, but when?”
“We have overhead costs, not big ones, but they’re still happening. For us to take a chance and wait it out (for a post-shutdown world), that puts a lot of strain on things and we don’t like that feeling,” Delarosbil said, reiterating the need for more family time and other employment led to the decision to close.
Taylor Delarosbil is a PUC lineman, Kasondra Delarosbil a recent Sault College nursing program graduate now working as a registered nurse at Sault Area Hospital (SAH).
“It’s a really tough decision. We enjoy putting a smile on people’s faces at our summer events,” Delarosbil said, Treetop Adventures having operated once the snow melted (April or May) to October each year.
The couple has owned and operated Treetop Adventures since 2015 (the business first opening in 2008).
There, helmeted and harnessed customers, guided by the Treetop couple and staff, climbed ladders and made their way across the treetops using bridges and cross balance beams.
The high-ropes aerial obstacle course ranges in height from 10 to 30 feet off the ground, and takes about two hours for visitors to complete.
The couple, interviewed by SooToday in July 2019, helped many customers overcome their fear of heights.
The business also included paintball for individuals and groups to enjoy out at Goulais.
Customers were of all ages and included locals, tourists, students on school field trips, postsecondary school frosh week revellers and employees of various businesses on team building trips.