The Colorado Fall Festival at Anderson Farm in Erie, Colorado is our family favorite! We love all the family-friendly activities : pick your own pumpkins, hayrides, corn mazes and so much more! We love Anderson Farm! Take a look at all the fun we've had (tons of pictures!).
Pick your own pumpkins. You're going to LOVE Anderson Farms. Over the years I've shared our love for Anderson Farms. This Fall Festival has become an annual tradition for my family, it's a favorite for sure. We head North to Erie, Colorado to spend the day outside and then come home with handpicked pumpkins. It's such a great way to start the fall season! So today I'm sharing my top 10 favorite reasons we've made Anderson Farms an annual event.
10 Reasons We LOVE Anderson Farms
I used to write about Anderson Farms every year so I've collected a number of articles sharing our annual activities. This year I decided to consolidate all that information into this one article so you can enjoy all the photos in one place. You can see my kids growing up with this fun Fall family tradition!
Every year we look forward to visiting Anderson Farms. The Fall Festival with a classic corn maze, pumpkin launching, pumpkin picking and a whole list of family-friendly activities hosted at the Anderson Farms property in Erie, Colorado. There are some regular activities that we are excited to do again and again. The staff is always super friendly and the atmosphere can't be beat! This is such a great way to spend some family time doing something we don't always get to do.
- Pick your own pumpkin. – Get on a big flatbed trailer and ride to the pumpkin patch to pick out your favorite pumpkin.
- Great fun and yummy treats. – Grab a snack, lunch, a snow cone or even some fall candies.
- Use your creativity and decorate a pumpkin. – Check out the Paint a Pumpkin booth (includes a pumpkin to paint!).
- Always adding new features and more fun. – This year there were all kinds of new additions to the farm. Our favorite was “Punch a Pumpkin” is a fun racing game to see who can make it through the maze the quickest. There's also a new booth to pick up your tickets. If you buy tickets online, you can go to a separate window and skip the long lines.
- Handmade preserves. – We picked up peach salsa and some berry preserves – YUM!
- Fun rides and activities. – We love to hop on the farm “roller coaster” and head over to the pumpkin catapult game.
- Games the kids love to play. – From races to mazes and all kinds of activities in between, there's something for every age! One thing we yet to try is the Zombie paintball or the after dark scary maze – if you like scares, stay at Anderson Farms after dark!
- Pumpkin launching. – There's a giant cannon that can launch pumpkins across the field. You can watch them at the top of every hour.
- Great learning opportunities. – This year there was a fun trailer teaching about the environment and weather. We even planted our own little sunflower seed!
- The amazing mazes and scavenger hunts. – Every year Anderson Farms changes their mazes that you can explore. There are 3 to choose from – one for tiny kids, one that includes a scavenger hunt and the big one. When you pick up your tickets, they'll give you a map of all three and you can decide which to do first!
Learn more about our visits to Anderson Farms. Take a look at the pumpkin my son picked out last year. We have a rule – if you can carry it, you can keep it. No pumpkin carrying for Dad when everyone wants a giant pumpkin! Visit the Anderson Farms website for schedule and ticket information.
More about Anderson Farms in Colorado
Anderson Farms hosts Colorado's Longest-Running Corn Maze. Take a hayride out to the pumpkin patch on a wagon pulled by an antique Oliver tractor. We have pumpkins as far as the eye can see! Get Lost in our 30-acre corn maze! The maze is open day and night and is never haunted. Plus the whole family will enjoy Pumpkin Launching, Barrel Train, Farm Animals, Kiddie Korral, Pedal Karts, Gem Mining, Private Campfires, Hay Bale Maze and the World's Largest Cornucopia. For the more adventurous crowd, check out Terror in the Corn and Zombie Paintball Hunt.
If you haven't been to a real farm to gather pumpkins, you need to check it out. The Anderson Farms Fall Festival is definitely worth a visit! The fall harvest season just isn't the same without a hayride and walk through a real pumpkin patch!
Even the pumpkins love each other at Anderson Farms!
More Memories from our visits to Anderson Farms Fall Festival
We went to Anderson Farms for the first time in 2012. Here are some of my family moments from fun over the years at Anderson Farms.
Pumpkin Crafts and Carving
Did you see those HUGE pumpkins? There was a table where a very talented artist was carving some of those giant pumpkins… it was so cool to watch! Something else to note, the playground. This is a new feature. I don't know if the playground was added this year or last, but it was a nice addition to see.
Giant Tricycles
We love the tricycle racing. The first time we visited, my daughter wasn't big enough to drive one of these bikes herself so when she was finally big enough, she was really excited to try out the big trikes. As you can see… she was beating dad!
Pumpkin Launching and Gourd Launching
At the top of every hour from, I think, 11am to 6pm, there is pumpkin launching. Right next to it is gourd launching. The pumpkins are launched from this giant air gun – WOW do they fly! I took a video but it's more likely to make you dizzy than actually should you a launched pumpkin. The gourd launching we all did. You get 5 gourds that you get to shoot at targets out in the field using a giant slingshot. So fun!
Pick Your Own Pumpkins
Anderson Farms is a genuine working farm. There are acres upon acres of corn and pumpkins and when you visit you get to wander around both. We hopped on a wagon pulled by a tractor and headed to one of the many pumpkin patches. Everyone piles off, wonders through the field, picks their favorites and piles back on to head back to the farm center. I told the kids if they could carry it, they could keep it… so this pumpkin came home with us. We had to move around a few things on the front porch just so it would fit!
Homemade Preserves and Gift Shop
After you grab your pumpkins, you head into the barn to pay for them. Here you'll find a yummy array of homemade canned goods and a concession stand. We picked out Peach Chipotle Salsa and Black Raspberry spread. My husband ate half the jar of salsa today before remembering he needed to share. So many yummy choices, it was hard to decide.
Corn Mazes
We spent about 2 hours in the corn maze and had a blast! This is all of us standing on a bridge that overlooks a portion of the maze. To my disappointment, we could not see the maze from this view either… no cheating apparently, bummer! There are two different scavenger hunts you can try to help get you through the maze. We picked one and once we finished we were starving, so we headed back to the barn for a treat.
Fresh on the Farm Food – YAY Snacks
I always forget how cold snowcones are.. but they taste darn good! We also had some “apple nachos” which are sliced apples, caramel, chocolate chips and whipped cream. I'm sorry, there were 4 of us and 8 slices.. they didn't last long enough for a picture. You can get lunch or just a snack at the various food stands. They have kettle corn, delicious BBQ and a whole variety of other goodies. Plenty of munchies for everyone.
Anderson Farms has become a family tradition for us. The kids love all the activities, the pumpkins are fantastic with prices to match. It's always a good time. From Castle Rock, Anderson Farms is a straight shot up I25 to Erie and takes just about an hour drive. We all think it's definitely worth the trip and look forward to the Fall Festival every year!
Our First Visit to the Fall Festival at Anderson Farms in Erie, Colorado
Let's walk down memory lane together. Here is the first article I wrote after our first visit to Anderson Farms. We've been fans ever since… I hope you can see why.
All these years in Colorado and I've never been up to Erie to visit Anderson Farms. Apparently, for the past 14 years they've been hosting a huge corn maze and now it's a regular fun fall event. We had so much fun, I think we've just started a new tradition!
There are a good variety of activities the whole family will enjoy, but instead of rambling on about them, I'm just going to share pictures. We got lucky as far as busy traffic goes. I didn't pay attention to the Bronco schedule so my family was headin' to the farm while everyone else was comfy on their couches watching the NFL. For us, that meant we didn't have to wait in line for any of the fun and in some cases, we were the only ones at an activity. It was fantastic!
There are 2 baby goats right now too – oh my gosh they are darn cute!!
We had so much fun at Anderson Farms, the kids were sad to go. The funny thing, we went to see the corn mazes but spent most of our time doing everything else. There's a lookout in the middle of the mazes I wanted to walk to so I could get some photos to show you, but we got distracted and I completely forgot.
Anderson Farm Fun Fact
Every year Anderson Farm changes the corn maze design. It's fun and fabulously new, every year! There's an area in the maze that you can go to to see photos of past mazes, we missed that too, but it sounded really great. I highly recommend you fit a visit to Anderson Farms into your fall activity schedule. Your kids are sure to have a good time!
I was so amazed we had never made it up to Anderson Farms before, but I'm sure glad we had the opportunity to discover this fun Fall festival way back in 2012!
Visit the Anderson Farms website for schedule and ticket information.
After all these years, the kids are no longer littles, excited about playing tag or hunting for rocks in the Gold Mining water bin. However, they still ask to go pick their own pumpkins and enjoy the treats at Anderson Farms. You're never too old for a pumpkin picking hay ride adventure! I think you and your family will love it… it's worth the drive.
