Popular New Kent trail haunt entering ninth year
Kelli Lieder puts the finishing touches on one of the tables inside of King Cornelius’ castle at Journey Haunted Trails in advance of a sneak preview for family members. Andre Jones photo
With the month of October comes the changing color of leaves, cooler weather, and Halloween decorations. And for Journey Haunted Trails, it’s another year for the annual “haunt event.”
Journey Trails begins its ninth year of haunted trails this Friday in New Kent County. The trails have received two national awards from the National Haunters Convention in Pennsylvania. The trails also claim to be based on some of the most unusual, truth-based haunts.
The trails are created by New Hope Family, a Christian-based organization that focuses its outpouring of support by communicating their message through a variety of modern means. The annual haunt is one of the means of communication as spoken by Kelli Lieder, organizer for the haunted trails.
“We try to get our message across by a variety of ways,” says Lieder. “New Kent is desperate for more entertainment, and we wanted to reach out to the community and this is one of the ways we do it.”
Each year, the trails and theme change, but the premise of the organization’s goals do not deter from its message. The trails provide a variety of ways for young people to express themselves.
“We found out that our trails allow an outlet to express creativity,” said Lieder. “That is a big need for them and they are able to show it.”
This year, the trails have expanded in length and more entertainment has been made available as well. One of the key attractions will be “King Cornelius’ Castle,” based on the story of King Cornelius and his search to try to discover the reason for life.
“We put in a lot of work into the castle,” said Lieder. “We’ve worked diligently to make sure we get every aspect right.”
Lieder said that the first steps for this year’s trails began in January, while most of the diligent and consistent worked started in June. While the congregation of New Hope Family is about 50 members, Lieder says there has been upwards of 70 volunteers helping with the construction of the trails.
“We have actors everywhere,” she said. “There are builders who put in full hours to make sure we have what we need, as well as makeup artists who work with our cast.”
The theme for this year is “Life is in the blood,” and Lieder says she hopes the message gets across to all who come out.
“We focused our resources on our attractions and it has been a challenge building outdoors in a natural environment,” she said. “We are playing on people’s natural fears and that’s one thing we have that most ‘scares’ don’t.
“Most scares don’t consist of gore,” she continued. “We want to get our message across, but if someone wants to come just to have a good time, we welcome them as well.”
Journey Trails officially opens this Friday and will be open every Friday and Saturday in October from 7:30-10:30 p.m. For information, log onto the web site at www.JourneyTrails.com or call Lieder at 840-7937.