Archive

Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source
Trail of Terror returns to Carnegie Park | TribLIVE.com
Carnegie Signal Item

Trail of Terror returns to Carnegie Park

Kristina Serafini
sigtrail100517jpg
Kristina Serafini | Tribune-Review
Volunteer Adam Lopata, 22, of Green Tree stands for a photo Friday, Sept. 29, 2017, inside the castle room of Carnegie's Trail of Terror wearing a costume he designed and created.

With the resurgence of creepy clowns through TV's “American Horror Story: Cult” and the recent release of the film “It,” it was only natural that creators of haunted attractions would incorporate them into their experience this Halloween season.

But Adam Lopata, 22, of Green Tree, hopes the clown area at Carnegie's Trail of Terror is the best around.

Lopata is one of a handful of volunteers designing and building this year's trail stops at the Carnegie Park attraction with its opening fright appropriately on Friday the 13th. One of his favorite features is a door painted like a clown with its mouth wide open that customers will have to step through.

“I don't mean to brag, but I think we're going to have the best clown area,” Lopata said.

“People love to hate clowns.”

The door was painted by Mary Pat Pitcher, who spearheaded efforts to build the Pitcher Park Memorial Skatepark in honor of two of her sons, Vincent and Stephen, who drowned during a 2008 camping trip.

Proceeds from the Trail of Terror benefit the skate park, and money raised this year will go toward a memorial wall for the two boys.

The annual haunt will mark its sixth year at Carnegie Park.

In addition to the clown area, customers will encounter frightening sights at a castle, a pirate-themed area and a maze as they weave their way through the trail.

Tickets can be purchased at the stone pavilion near the dog park. Customers are loaded onto a haunted school bus that will drop them off at the beginning of the trail, where a fortune teller character will be waiting to set the mood.

Lopata said the trail is a labor of love for the small group of volunteers.

“We help each other out along the way — it's really a group effort here,” he said. “It takes a lot to put together. The community really comes together.”

Looking around the half-finished castle room he designed, Lopata said the ideas he and the other volunteers have are really ambitious for the amount of people involved. There is a dedicated core of about seven people who work on the trail in the evenings after having worked all day at their regular jobs.

Last year, volunteers had to scramble to rebuild one of the sets the night before the grand opening after it blew over in a storm.

The group is looking for additional volunteers for the haunt, including students who are required to complete community service projects for school or anyone wishing to get more involved in their community.

Those wanting to volunteer are asked to be at the trail by 5 p.m. on opening night to have makeup applied and to go through an orientation.

Actors are asked to wear all black and dress warm. The trail provides costumes, but volunteers are welcome to bring their own. There is no script and no acting experience is necessary.

“Last year, we had someone dressed as Gumby,” Lopata said. “We just want people to come and have fun.”

A non-scary tour of the trail for children will not return this year. Instead, it is offering children the chance to walk through the attraction with a volunteer who will have a flashlight.

“We won't scare little kids if they don't want to be scared,” Loptata said, though he added that most children enjoy the scare, even if they don't admit it until afterward.

“We had a little kid come in here and he was scared at first,” Lopata said about one of the volunteer's children who attended one of the building sessions with his parent. “Twenty minutes in, he wanted to put on a mask to scare his mother.”

Lopata hopes the opening night goes smoothly.

“Hopefully it's not a curse,” Lopata said, referring to the Friday the 13th opening. “Hopefully nothing goes wrong.”

Kristina Serafini is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at kserafini@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KristinaS_trib.