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MARK YOUR
CALENDARS!
DISCOVER! | OCTOBER 21, 2023
Halloween | 7
It’s always just fun to see what people
come up with. Some of our volunteers —
what they are born to do to is
scare the crud out of kids. Lexie Ruter
Hike FULL of
FRIGHT
Get scared in Fort Defiance
State Park on Oct. 28
Halloween is the one time of the
year when people are looking
to be scared just for the fun of it.
The Estherville Chamber of Commerce
has got you covered.
This will be the eleventh year that
Fort Defiance State Park will play
host to the Fright Hike hosted by the
Estherville Chamber of Commerce.
The spookiness will run from 6-9:30
p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28.
The Fright Hike is a roughly halfa-mile
hike through the woods of
Fort Defiance State Park, which will
be studded with volunteer groups
acting out scary scenes as well as individuals
waiting in the shadows for
the chance to scare your socks off.
This one-night-only event requires
about 50-60 volunteers to pull together
as everything is set up and
torn down that weekend and then to
help coordinate the crowds as well as
the scares on the hike.
“A lot of our groups are volunteers
and some of those groups do the
same scare theme every year and
other try out new things,” said Lexie
Ruter, the executive director of the
Estherville Chamber of Commerce.
The hike is extremely popular and
has grown dramatically over the 11
years they’ve been hosting the event.
At the beginning they originally
held the Fright Hike on whatever
night Halloween was, but after
seeing the crowds explode when
Halloween happened to fall on a
Saturday one year, they decided to
host the event the Saturday before
Halloween.
“We had 1,200 people last year. We
had a little over that in 2021, but we
had about as much as we can handle,”
Ruter said. “It’s awesome. It’s
three-and-half-hours and fast-paced
but it’s a great experience.”
A few years ago, in an attempt to
add more capacity as well as reduce
the scare a bit, they added a “Lights
On” hour from 6-7 p.m.
“We just turn down the scare for
our Lights On hour. We tell people
that for this hour we’ll turn on the
chain saw and then after 7, we’ll
chase you with it,” Ruter said with a
laugh.
This is one of Ruter’s favorite
events that the chamber does every
year.
“It’s always just fun to see what
people come up with. Some of our
volunteers — what they are born
to do is scare the crud out of kids,”
Ruter said.
Scares aplenty will be waiting for
you in the dark woods of Fort Defiance.
F
Estherville | Iowa
At a Glance:
WHAT: Fright Hike
WHERE: Fort Defiance State Park,
175th St., Estherville, IA
WHEN: 6-9:30 p.m. Saturday,
Oct. 28
COST: $10
CONTACT: 712-362-3541
ONLINE: www.estherville.org/
fright-hike.html
KATE HARLOW | STAFF WRITER