Need an escape? Go climb a tree!

In this story: Returning to the tree Go outside and play Like an inchworm RELATEDS

(WebMD) -- After working a 12-hour shift as a labor and delivery nurse, some women would seek stress relief in an aerobics class or a long, hot bath. Nancy Cole, a 53-year-old nurse and mother of two who lives in Laguna Beach, California, prefers to climb a Jeffrey pine, nestle her face into the jigsaw bark and inhale the butterscotch aroma.

When she returns to earth, the arboreal workout leaves Cole glowing and renewed. As husband Bobby Cole says: "I always know when she's been up in a tree. She has a look on her face like she's transcended the earth for a bit."

More and more adults are rediscovering the rejuvenating benefits of tree climbing, thanks to the efforts of Atlanta tree surgeon Peter "Treeman" Jenkins. Jenkins established the world's first recreational tree-climbing school in 1983 in an Atlanta vacant lot.

Recently, the new sport has caught on, and folks are flocking to Atlanta to climb Jenkins' two 90-foot white oaks, Nimrod and Diana. Jenkins' organization, Tree Climbers International, has doubled its membership in the last two years, with 700 members currently enrolled. And four new climbing schools, inspired by the Treeman, have sprouted in the United States. The schools are located in Kansas City, Kansas; Charlotte, North Carolina and Fayetteville and Alto, Georgia. New tree-climbing schools are also debuting in France, Germany and Japan.

"I want to return the human race to the trees," says Jenkins, an elfish man who fields calls on a cell phone from high in a tree and usually sports a caterpillar or an ant on his shoulder. "People get a better perspective of their life and the world from up here."

The booming interest in tree climbing reflects, in part, the public's weariness with rote gym-based workouts. "Exercisers get bored quickly," says Christine Ekeroth, a spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise.

As a result, Ekeroth's organization has predicted that activities like tree climbing will be increasingly popular in coming years. "Adventure workouts," as the council calls them, involve elements of the natural world -- rocks, trees, mountains -- and are more spontaneous and varied than workouts with weights and treadmills.

The play element is also a big draw for exercisers, says Ekeroth. People are lining up for play-filled classes that teach circus skills and for so-called "recess" classes that revive long-forgotten games like four-square and tag.

"The emphasis is on having fun instead of building a specific muscle group," Ekeroth says.

While anyone can get a taste of fun by climbing (carefully) into the backyard oak, Peter Jenkins can take you higher than you'd likely care to climb on your own. By using harnesses and ropes like those used by rock climbers and arborists, Jenkins' students safely ascend 70 feet and more into the treetops. Advanced students may want to try "tree surfing" -- riding swaying limbs in high winds. They can also try throwing a catered treetop party or traversing from treetop to treetop and camping out in aerial hammocks called "tree boats."

In nearly two decades of leading novices up trees, Jenkins reports no injuries more serious than a few hair yanks and mild cases of "bark bite."

Of course, you don't have to swing from limb to limb to have fun. Some people are happy just finding the perfect daydreaming perch. Nancy Cole learned all about dreaming in trees when she was just 5 years old and started climbing the big maples behind her Evansville, Indiana, home. Her mother would scold her to come down, which, of course, only prompted Cole to climb higher.

Cole, an exuberant woman with a mane of red hair, eventually returned to earth long enough to marry and have two sons. But when, as a middle-aged adult, she heard about the school in Atlanta, Cole immediately signed up for a class -- no matter that she had to fly across the country. Here was an opportunity to go out on a limb again and to safely build balance, flexibility and strength.

At tree-climbing school, Cole strapped into a climber's harness and then clipped an attached carabiner to a rope that dangled from Jenkins' oak tree, the 90-foot high Nimrod. The climbing rope was tied with a special knot that makes it easy for climbers to ascend without using a lot of upper-body strength.

Moving up the rope like an inchworm, Cole was soon dangling high above the ground. The technique is so simple, says Jenkins, that it's easily mastered by climbers from age 5 to 70. A bonus: The method employs no spikes or other devices that could harm the tree. Jenkins likes to remind climbers, "Diana and Nimrod are living things."

On Cole's first climb with Jenkins, she reveled in the feeling of flying free under the green canopy where the branches of Diana and Nimrod meet overhead. ("I think of Diana and Nimrod as married," says Jenkins.)

Cole found a cradle formed by two branches, settled her body into the nook, and surveyed the world from her leafy hideout -- just as she had when, as a kid, she toted her dolls into the backyard maple. Because she was barefoot (the only way to climb a tree, she says), Cole was able to notice how perfectly her bare toes fit into the grooves in the oak tree's bark. She breathed in the tree's scent -- like a wood fire on a warm day -- and unabashedly threw her arms around the oak. "Tree climbers really do hug trees, even though it sounds trite," she said later. "And I feel like the tree hugs me back."

Cole has now completed four classes at Jenkins' school and is about to be trained as an instructor, so she can teach recreational tree climbing to others near her home.

She's already passed on her love of tree climbing to at least one protege: her son. When Aaron was 5, Cole says, he began to scale the 40-foot oak in the backyard -- and fell the short distance to the ground.

"Don't move!" Cole shouted, and ran to his aid. Aaron was lying on his back staring up at his mom and wailing. "Does your back hurt?" Cole asked.

"No."

"Do your arms hurt? Your legs?"

"No."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because I'm afraid you won't let me get back up in the tree," said Aaron Hendry, now 26, and -- like his mother -- still climbing trees.

© 2000 Healtheon/WebMD. All rights reserved.

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