Cross E Ranch is a local farm in Salt Lake City, and they host a few fun events each year and invite everyone to their farm. In the Spring they hold Baby Animal Days, and in the Fall, you can attend the Cross E Ranch Fall Festival through the month of October.
There are a lot of fun activities at the Fall Festival. To begin with, you can visit all the farm animals. There are donkeys, goats, bunnies, and pigs. We had fun looking at and petting all of the animals. There is also a hayride that takes you out around the farm where you can see the cows that they raise, and they tell the history of the farm and how their farm is run. Everyone was very nice and friendly while we were at Cross E Ranch. They were especially great with my toddler, which I loved!
Next you will want to check out the train ride. This was my little one’s favorite activity. There are some train cars pulled by a large tractor. They go for a few circles around the farm, and it sure made all the kids happy.
The corn pit, straw bale maze, and big slides are all in one area, so you can plop down while your children run from activity to activity. There is also a hidden tunnel under the slide that luckily one of the other kids told us about. There is a tall slide and a small slide, so even the littlest kids can go down a slide. We spent a lot of time playing in this area.
One thing that we liked was all of the fun cutouts to take pictures in. As we walked through the farm, we stopped to take a picture in each one. My boys also loved playing on the old tractors that they had sitting out.
The corn maze is definitely one of the best parts of the Cross E Ranch Fall Festival. It is divided into three areas: 1) one huge area where teenagers can get lost forever; 2) a middle sized area for families or older kids who want to solve a Clue-like mystery. The farmer has gone missing and as you work through the maze you come across scenes that help you eliminate items just like in the game Clue. My older boys would have loved this, but they were in school; 3) and the small maze is perfect for little kids. In this maze you solve the mystery of who stole the farmer’s pie. They have a paper for you to take in the maze, and you come across little posts to do a rubbing of animal tracks. These tracks are the clues for the mystery. It was such a darling idea and my toddler had so much fun guessing what the animal tracks were. Then when you exit the maze, you can check your guesses. I normally hate corn mazes, but when we had a mystery to solve, it was much more fun and kept me from feeling like I was wandering around for no reason.
We visited Cross E Ranch during the day, but at night they have special activities. One of those is movie on the barn, so make sure to follow their Facebook or Instagram accounts to see when those movies will take place. They also have fire pits throughout the farm area to help you warm up during those cooler summer months, and enjoy some s’mores. The staff told me that they also had some high school Jazz bands coming to perform some nights.
Everything is included in the admission cost for the Fall Festival (other than pumpkins and food). Check out their website for current dates and prices. We loved that we were supporting a local farm. On the hayride they tell you all about the farm, and they mention that they are the last farm in SLC that is trying to make a living from running a farm. We had such a great time at Cross E Ranch that we definitely want to go back!!
