Looking for a way to lose yourself this fall? Anyone looking for something fun in The Valley this fall will be able to lose themselves -literally -in The Valley’s first corn maze.
Farmer Elwin Neill has transformed a five-acre cornfield at his Waitsfield farm on North Road into a maze that opens Aug. 29, offering anyone looking for an outdoor challenge a chance to navigate twists, turns and dead ends through towering corn stalks.
"It's never been done in The Valley before," he said.
To create the maze, Neill enlisted the help of neighbor Nate Vandal, who works in solar project planning. Using a drone, Vandal photographed the field from above before mapping the maze on a computer and creating a gridded design that could be followed on a smartphone.
"He mapped it out on the computer," Neill said. "Then we went through it."
The finished maze features long corridors, multiple intersections and a large open grassy area near its center that serves as a hub for several different routes. While the clearing offers a welcome break from the towering corn, it also presents one of the maze's biggest challenges: choosing the correct path forward.
EARLY VISITORS
Early visitors Asher Adams, 13, and his sister, Lilah Adams, 11, both of Waitsfield and Texas, recently tested the maze with family members before its public opening.
"It was confusing because there were a couple escape routes," Asher said. "We thought they were exits."
"The original going through and thinking the escape route was the exit took us 10 minutes," Asher said. "Then we had to go back in. It took us 40 minutes to get through."
Despite standing in a field of corn, the stalks were tall enough that there was little opportunity to see above them.
"Every now and then you can see a little bit outside," Asher said. "But not really."
GRASSY CENTER
Lilah said the maze became even more challenging after reaching the grassy center.
"We picked all of them," she said of the different pathways leading from the clearing. "And we lost track of which one we came from."
"We got lost a lot," Lilah said. "We ended up trying to double back on our track. Then we found a different way and we got out."
Their mother, Rachel Schneider, said the maze strikes a good balance between accessibility and challenge.
Initially Schneider navigated the maze with her sister-in-law Eva Schneider 7-year-old nephew, Sagan Schneider, who confidently led the group through much of the first section.
"He was amazing at this," she said. "He led us, and he was so confident."
ESCAPE ROUTE
A few days after the Schneider/Adams clan took on the maze, I was able to do the same with my 7-year-old friend Lillasandra Lyford. We started out confidently enough in the towering corn and also ended up at the escape route.
Backtracking we began again in earnest, noting what we thought were landmarks to help us avoid looping. We found bent corn stalks, some flowering squash and did some looping nonetheless. We had Lillasandra stand at a corner while I ran ahead and peered around the next bend. We left my water bottle at one junction, confident we’d loop back once we determined that a path was a red herring. It wasn’t!
We did a lot of backtracking and guessing (we got back to my water bottle!) and we were hot and sweaty when we got out. It’s amazing how tall the corn is and how disoriented you can get, even though you can see the roofs of two nearby houses and hear the road and see the ridge line. It’s really difficult and really fun.
The maze will be open weekends beginning Aug. 29 and 30 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with closing times adjusted later in the season as daylight hours shorten. It will be closed Labor Day weekend and Indigenous Peoples' Day weekend.
School groups, camps and other organizations interested in weekday visits may arrange special openings by contacting Neill at
