The Echo Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch is open for business for the fall season.

Fall has officially arrived in Echo with the opening of the Echo Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch.

Forty-five minutes into Saturday’s opening day no one had shown up yet, but organizers weren’t that worried.

“The first day’s always quieter,” Gina Tyhuis said. “It’s Saturday and people like to sleep in.”

She was working with Val Anctil and Jeff Lorton to arrange hay bales and corn stalks into a photo backdrop for visiting groups as they waited for the first visitors to arrive.

The Tyhuis family started the corn maze three years ago, with the help of some friends. The maze at 100 N Dupont Street, across from Echo Ridge Cellars, takes about an hour to get through. The site also features a zipline, pumpkins for sale, fire pits for groups to rent, a hay bale maze for young children and a haunted scare path on select evenings.

Melissa Lambert and her husband were putting together the hay bale maze Saturday morning, surrounded by pumpkins and sunflowers.

“I planted 3,500 pumpkins in my back yard by seed,” Lambert said. “We hand-planted every single pumpkin.”

She said she had also gone over every part of the maze with caution tape, looking for any dangerous spots.

Lambert said she became friends with Tyhuis while babysitting her kids and began helping out with the maze that way. One of her favorite things about living in Echo is how community-oriented and family-friendly it is, she said. The corn maze is a good example of that.

“We got a few sponsors this year,” she said. “Every year is getting bigger and bigger. It’s exciting.”

Tyhuis said the hay bales were donated by Jeff Spike, and the maze itself was designed and cut by Barton Laser Leveling.

“We definitely wouldn’t have a corn maze without Barton,” she said.

Admission is $10 for a day pass or $12 for the haunted path. Regular hours for the corn maze are Tuesday through Thursday 2-6 p.m., Friday 2-10 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The haunted path, known as the Field of Screams, is open Oct. 13, 20, 27 and 31 from 7-9 p.m. The normal corn maze isn’t haunted.

“We don’t scare the whole thing,” Tyhuis said. “A lot of people don’t like to go if they don’t like to get scared, so this way they have a choice.”

She said it’s mostly local FFA students who do the scaring, but she has gotten out there herself on occasion and it was fun.

For more information about special events, group rentals, field trips and rules visit echocornmaze.com or find them on Facebook.