UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Enchanted Halloween Trail and Festival returns to Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center for a weekend of community and family friendly fun on Oct. 20-21.
The Enchanted Halloween Trail and Festival, formerly the Fall Harvest Festival and Children’s Halloween Trail, will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 20 and 21 at the Petersburg, Huntingdon County, center. The festival celebrates the fall harvest and includes pumpkin carving, face painting, music, entertainment, activities, natural history programs and food for purchase.
Admission to the festival is free, and tickets for the Enchanted Halloween Trail are $5 for children and adults (free for ages 3 and younger). The festival is being held for the first time since 2015 after Shaver’s Creek closed for two years to undergo major renovations.
Tesha Omeis, program director for the festival, says the weekend is all about connecting people to the natural world.
“We hope that people who come to the festival will feel more connected to nature and a part of the natural cycles that are happening all around them,” she said.
The theme for this year’s Enchanted Halloween Trail is natural cycles, and Penn State student guides will lead the nonscary trail and teach stories about the cycles of trees, from decomposition to reproduction, and how different parts of trees help them function throughout the year.
Lexi Arnold, a Penn State senior, will be leading one station that teaches about the lifecycle of white pine trees. She says the trail is a great opportunity to engage children in a unique way.
“Hopefully it will instill curiosity, and Halloween’s a great time to do that,” said Arnold, who will be dressed as “Grandmother Pine” with a long silver wig and a beard with pine needles and sticks in it. “We want to make learning fun, give them a positive outdoor experience and have them walk away learning something new.”
Festival-goers can also enter pumpkin-carving and costume contests with winners for each day being announced on Halloween. Pumpkins are $2 and carving tools will be available at the festival.
Visit the Shaver’s Creek website for more information.