You would not have wanted to be lost in the woods when Exeter Township’s Park and Recreation Department transformed the Thun Trail into one spooky, scary place.
The family Halloween haunted hayride attraction and festivities were held Friday, Oct. 10, 11 at Trout Run with the scare intensity amped up for the Sunday, Oct. 12 event.
The mastermind behind a majority of the scary scenes are the girls of Girl Scout Troop 1091 and their troop leader, Michelle Koch. Koch and her troop have been assisting with the attractions for the past seven years and have helped the event to evolve dramatically.
The original township production began as a hayride through the Daniel Boone Homestead and has since been developed into a three-day haunted spectacular. Festivities included carnival games, a dance party with DJ Special D, and costume party, but the drawing factor is the family friendly haunted hayride.
Troop 1091 crafted eight different scenes for the hayride, including Hill Billies BBQ, Zombie Nursery, Mad Scientist Lab, Torch-er Chamber, Pyscho Hospital, Morgue, Dancing Skeletons and Werewolves in London, complete with actors and animatronics.
“The girls love doing this, it is one of their favorite activities we do each year,” Koch said. Koch crafts the scenes herself, often finding scary things she likes online and thinks of ways to build them herself.
The haunted hayride scenes are only possible through a year long process of preparation for Koch and the girls.
“I put about 120 hours into planning, designing and building the scenes,” she said. “Each girl’s help is different but most of them put in about 12 to 30 hours in total helping.”
This year, the entire troop (17 girls) volunteered for the event, by either manning the games or haunting the trail.
“We start planning the week after the hayride for the next year. We start with just ideas on what worked and what did not,” Koch said. “We start building in June and have everything finished by the end of September.”
For Koch, it’s the ability to be creative with endless possibilities that draws her to Halloween. “It’s like an art and robotics formed into one project. This year I challenged myself with making some of the characters in the scene animated.”
Scenes were brought to life with either actors or the animatronics, automatic moving creatures, and is kept to a family friendly atmosphere. Until Sunday night, when the spook level is unleashed.
“This event was built on this — little kids coming down and leaving with a handful of cookies,” Michael Fritz, Mayor of St. Lawrence, said. Fritz likes to assist with Exeter’s Halloween celebrations even though he does not reside in the township.
Free family fall photos were taken by Pastor Wendy of North Star United Methodist Church, Exeter Township, allowing families to go home with a snapshot of them at the event.
Check out our media gallery of the event here.