Andelin Family Farm in Fall: A Day-to-Night Guide for 2026
A pumpkin patch that started as one acre in 2010, a corn maze with a spy game, and a haunted cornfield with a mercy rule. How to spend a fall day and night at Andelin Family Farm in Sparks.
Andelin Family Farm is where a lot of Reno kids meet their first pumpkin patch, and some of them come back ten years later for their first haunted cornfield. The farm on Pyramid Way in Sparks runs both, plus a corn maze, zombie paintball, and a small zoo’s worth of animals, and 2026 is its 17th fall season. It drew just under 100,000 visitors a year by 2023, and this year Reno News & Review named it the area’s Best Harvest Festival.
Here’s how the day and the night fit together, and what each part costs.
A hundred years in the making
The farm’s story starts in 1917, when a widowed mother named Angelina Gaspari moved her six children, 11 cows, and 5 horses to Spanish Springs. The family cleared sagebrush, grew alfalfa, and farmed with horses before they ever owned a tractor.
The Andelins bought the place in 1981, and the deal let the Gasparis stay on as long as they liked. Cameron Andelin, the oldest of six boys, grew up hauling hay and offering to collect eggs at Joe and Jenny Gaspari’s house. In 2009 he and his wife, Natalie, moved onto the farm with their five kids, and the next fall they tried an idea of Natalie’s: a pumpkin patch.
That first patch was almost an acre, planted by ten people in about six hours, with pumpkins priced $1 to $8 and three of the Andelin boys running the admission booth. It sold out of good pumpkins a week early. The family bought more from Lattin Farm in Fallon and sold out again by Nevada Day. Every fall since, the festival has grown: a kids’ corn maze in 2012, the first big maze in 2013, a train, Slide Mountain, and an animal lineup that now includes camels, capybaras, and a porcupine.
The daytime farm
The Adventure Farm is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am to 7 pm, through October 31, with the last timed entry at 5:45 pm. Online admission is $15.50 Wednesday and Thursday, $17.50 Friday, and $19.50 Saturday, and kids 2 and under get in free. Plan on an hour and a half to two hours, or most of the day with toddlers.
Admission covers the animals, the hayride, the Bumpy Buggies and barrel trains, Slide Mountain, the hay jump, a straw bale maze, a trike track, playhouses, a corn pit, a sand digger pit, and a duck race. Pony rides ($10), horse rides ($12), gem mining ($6 to $30), and the Andelin Express train ($3 on Saturdays, free on weekdays) cost extra. Pumpkins run 60 cents a pound, and you can buy one from the U-pick field without paying admission at all.
Food comes from trucks on the grounds: Island Dogs, Tia Tortilla, and the Treat Trailer, whose fall-only Autumn Delight stacks caramel, apple cider slush, and vanilla soft serve. The farm is wheelchair accessible, though deep gravel is hard on small wheels, and it lends one wheelchair for two hours if you reserve it by email.
The corn maze
This year’s maze has a USA 250 theme, and the farm lists it at five acres with stalks 8 to 10 feet tall. It comes with a Revolutionary War spy game called George Washington’s Spy Scramble, and most groups finish in 45 minutes to an hour. Tickets are $11.50 and separate from farm admission. The maze stays open until 10 pm on October festival days, flashlights are welcome, and there are no scare actors in it, since Corn Creepers has its own field.
The big maze dates to 2013, when Cameron built a two-row corn planter out of old International Harvester units he bought from a farmer in Idaho. He’s six-foot-two, and he was thrilled the first time the corn grew taller than him.
After dark: Corn Creepers
Corn Creepers started that same year. In October 2013 the farm announced that its scarecrows had come to life and would haunt the maze for four nights, at $5 a head. The glow necklace started then too: wear one and the actors turn the scare down. It’s still sold today.
The haunt now has its own field and new scenes every season. This year’s lineup includes Lil Joe’s Butcher Shop, the Carn-EVIL Clowns, the witches and cryptids of Lore & Legends, and Black Horn Hollow. It’s touch-free, and the house rules ban profanity and alcohol. The farm describes its themes as on the tame side while still aiming to be truly scary, and it recommends the haunt for ages 7 and up. Co-owner Natalie Andelin is a fan herself: “I am kind of a haunted house junkie,” she told 2News last fall.
Corn Creepers runs Thursday through Saturday nights through Halloween, from 7 pm to 10 or 10:30 pm, with entry slots every 15 minutes from 7 to 9. Tickets run $18.50 to $33.50 online depending on the night, and a limited number of Fast Pass tickets ($26.50 to $46.50) get their own faster lane. The path is uneven and can be muddy, so it isn’t wheelchair accessible. Wear real shoes and bring a jacket.
Zombie Paintball
The farm’s other night ride starts in a wrecked army bunker with a briefing, then loads you onto a bus with paintball markers mounted at the windows. You roll through a field of live zombie actors with 100 paintballs and a free refill at the halfway point, and nobody shoots back. It’s $21.50 to $27.50 depending on the night and recommended for ages 5 and up, with an adult along for riders 10 and under. Two of the buses are wheelchair accessible.
For younger kids, Wednesday nights are the gentle option. A $21.50 combo covers the corn maze, a Glow Paintball ride at glowing targets with no live zombies, and a small treat.
Special days still ahead
- October 3: First Responder Day, free admission with valid ID
- October 10: Teacher Appreciation, free for educators with a school district badge
- October 17: Princesses roam the farm for photos
- October 24: Great Pumpkin Day, with a carving contest and an all-you-can-carry pumpkin deal
- October 26: Pups at the Patch, 5 to 7 pm, the one night dogs are welcome ($31.50 for a dog and one person)
- October 31: Trick-or-treating and a fill-the-wagon pumpkin deal
Putting the day together
You don’t need a farm ticket for the haunt, so a night visit can be just Corn Creepers, just paintball, or both. If you’re doing both, the farm suggests booking them 45 to 60 minutes apart. For a full day, the Adventure Farm’s last entry at 5:45 pm leaves time for dinner from the trucks before a 7 pm haunt slot. On haunt nights the farm also rents propane fire pits by the hour, starting at $51.50 for up to ten people, and sells s’mores kits to go with them.
Buy online, since it’s cheaper and guarantees entry. Tickets are non-refundable, and date changes cost $5. Current prices and hours live on the Corn Creepers listing.