Buena Vista Hosts Annual Fall Color Festival

The season change is upon us. Soon, we should be seeing all the colors of autumn filling the trees.

When asked if they see any colors yet, Fall Color Festival attendee William says, “Mostly yellow.”

Another attendee, Jesse adds, “I’ve seen red.”

“It’s very hard to schedule and tell you what the colors are gonna be, but there’s some pretty good color right now, this year,” says Wendell Knutson with the Buena Vista Fall Color Festival.

The annual Fall Color Festival at Buena Vista is meant to celebrate the season. It’s been known as the Fall Color Festival for about 20 years now. Before that, it was known as Logging Days.

“We started Logging Days originally back about 40 years ago approximately, and it became such a challenge of getting logs and teamsters and stuff, so we switched it to fall color rides, and everybody likes the temperature better,” says Knutson.

There were tons of fall activities that families could participate in over the weekend from petting goats and mini horses to learning how to lasso.

“We got pumpkins and we got caramel corn,” says Rihanna, who attended the festival.

“My favorite thing so far is the wood sculptor with the chainsaw or the blacksmith,” adds William.

The main attraction was a hay bale ride so attendees could really get a good look at the budding leaves of fall.

Jerzi, a Fall Color Festival attendee, says, “Our favorite part about today was the wagon ride because we got to ride and see the lake and stuff.”

It was a little gloomy on Saturday, but organizers say it was good thing because it makes for a better trip for the horses.

“Today is a little overcast, but it’s much better than a hot, sunny day. The horses get quite a workout pulling up that hill so if it was hot and sunny, the horses would probably tire out faster than they are today,” says Knutson.

Organizers say the festival will usually see around 900 people during the weekend.