Published: October 08, 2008 01:16 pm            

Not all gore | Parades, mazes help usher in haunting season

BY RUTH RICE

RRICE@TRIBDEM.COM

From pumpkin patches to haunted hangings, Halloween events in the area range from family friendly to frightfully fearsome.

At Vale Wood Farms, 517 Vale Wood Road, Loretto, activities are geared toward families.

Carissa Itle Westrick, Valewood’s marketing director and a fourth-generation dairy farmer, said that school tours will bring 1,000 schoolchildren to Vale Wood in the next two weeks.

“We get everyone from preschoolers to middle-school students studying environmental science,” Westrick said. “We’ve had a St. Francis marketing class studying the workings of a small dairy farm.”

Last year, bus tours from Greensburg brought 1,000 senior citizens to the farm in two days.

The hayride farm tours, which follow a one-mile loop around the dairy farm, will be held through Oct. 17.

“On the weekend, we start at noon and run on the hour,” Westrick said. “If we get busy, we go to the half hour.”

Cost of the hayride is $4 per person for weekday school tours and $5 per person for weekend tours.

General admission to the farm, where children can play all day, is $1.

The farm’s pumpkin patch, with gourds, cornstalks, hay bales and pumpkins, will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 19.

“We have an enclosed straw maze with one entrance and one exit so parents don’t have to worry where their kids are,” Westrick said.

Information: www.valewoodfarms.com or 886-7171.

Other family-friendly haunts include corn mazes, storybook trick-or-treating and ghouls on parade.



Weakland Farms Corn Maze will be held through Nov. 2 at the farm, located off the Portage exit of Route 219 North.

Hours are 4 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 1 to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Admission is $6. Children ages 5 and younger will be admitted free.

For private party rates, call 736-3134 or 736-9531.



The annual Harvest Festival will be held Fridays through Sundays in October at Faranda’s Farm, 1171 Penn Ave., Hollsopple.

Hours are 4 p.m. to dusk Fridays, 11 a.m. to dusk Saturdays and 1 to 6 p.m. Sundays.

Special Halloween hours will be 4 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 31.

On flashlight nights, which are Oct. 17-18, 24-25 and 31, Faranda’s will be open until 9:30.

Admission to the maze is $10.

Information: www.farandafarm.net.



Hallowboo, with trick-or-treating in Storybook Forest, will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and Oct. 18-19 and 25-26 at Idlewild Park, Ligonier.

All-day admission is $19.95 for children ages 3 and older. Children younger than 2 will be admitted free.

Discount coupons are available at participating Giant Eagle supermarkets.

Information: (724) 238-6784.



Things that go bump in the night will be on display in two area Halloween parades.

Johnstown’s 40th annual Halloween Parade will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in downtown Johnstown, and the annual Bedford Elks Halloween Parade will be held at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in downtown Bedford.

Bedford’s rain date is Oct. 29.

For those who want to take the terror up a notch, fright nights can be found in Somerset County and beyond.



Huston’s Haunted Hollow will provide frightfully good fun today and Saturday and Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 1 at 126 Woodland Road, Rockwood.

The scene of the scarefest is six miles south of Somerset on Route 281.

Haunting hours are from dusk to 11 p.m.

Admission is $12 per person for adults and $10 for children younger than 10.

Information: www.hauntedhollow.net or 926-3133.



Guests will take a frightening step back in time as history is replayed at The Haunted Hayloft, 887 West Mud Pike, Rockwood.

There will be death on the gallows as the Nicely hangings are relived.

The hayloft will be open from 7 to 11 p.m. today and Saturday and Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 1.

Information: www.hauntedhayloft.com or 926-2779.



Phantom Fright Nights will be haunting Kennywood Park in West Mifflin from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 1, with a bonus bewitching night from 7 to 11 on Oct. 12.

Tickets are $23 at the gate and $20 at participating Giant Eagle supermarkets.

Information: (412) 461-0500.



The 25th annual Ghost & Goblins event will be held Friday and Saturday nights in October at Lincoln Caverns, near Huntingdon.

Family tours will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays, and more frightful tours will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Tickets for family tours are $10.99 for adults and $6.99 for children ages 12 and younger. Children younger than 4 are admitted free.

Tickets for haunted tours are also $10.99.

Information: www.lincolncaverns.com or 643-0268.

        

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