Travelguide - cornfield mazes in mountain states;Table Rock Trail and Trailing of the Sheep festival in Idaho; other travel destinations and events in Western states

Sunset, Oct, 1999 by Julie Fanselow

Cornfield mazes offer high yield of fun

Six puzzles sprout in mountain states this month

* What began as an unremarked-upon oddity just three years ago has taken root as a favorite fall pastime. The Maize, a Utah-based company that began the cornfield-maze craze in 1996, has cut walk-through puzzles into 27 locations across the United States this autumn - that's 26 more than three years ago, when founder Brett Herbst created his first cornfield conundrum in American Fork, Utah.

This year, Herbst is aiming for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records with what he says will be the world's biggest cornfield maze, a puzzle he began cutting in mid-June in the Salt Lake City suburb of Lindon. Like the other Maize sites, it's open through Halloween.

From the air, the Lindon maze's theme - Get Lost in Space - is as plain as the age-old model of the planets orbiting the sun. On the ground, however, visitors confront several miles of corridors and dozens of intersections slashed through 10-foot-high stalks. People spend anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours making their way through the labyrinth, often with a few helpful hints from the "corn cops" who are stationed along the route. Families often find that children navigate the paths more easily than most second-guessing grown-ups.

This month, cornfield mazes can be seen in all their autumn glory at Idaho Falls and Rexburg (208/522-4340) and Meridian (208/938-9887) in Idaho; Billings, Montana (406/259-3276); and Layton (801/4478813) and Lindon (801/3560530) in Utah. The mazes are typically open late afternoons and evenings Monday through Friday, and all day Saturday. Prices generally run about $5 to $6, $3 to $4 ages 6-11.

For more information, call the individual numbers listed or visit www. cornfieldmaze.com.

DAY TRIP

Gallows and gardens

* It's no wilderness trek, but for a quick heart-starting hike mere miles from downtown Boise, it's hard to beat the Table Rock Trail. What's more, the trail leaves from the Old Idaho Penitentiary, one of the capital city's most interesting historic sites.

Park in the small lot across from the Old Pen entrance, and look for the sign that reads "Quarry Trail Begins Here." Your destination is Table Rock, visible to the east with a large steel cross on its edge.

For the first few hundred yards, the trail parallels the Old Penitentiary's Quarry Trail. A short spur leads to the rock pit where inmates quarried sandstone for many of Boise's original roads and buildings. After rejoining the main trail, you'll cross an open stretch of sagebrush, bitterbrush, and other high-desert vegetation. Turn around now and then for wide views of the Boise skyline.

It's an 860-foot climb to the top of Table Rock, with a few moderately steep switchbacks. From the summit you'll see downtown to the west, the Owyhee Mountains to the south, and the Boise Front to the north.

Back at the trailhead, take time to tour the Old Penitential, which housed criminals from 1870 until 1973. Among the most notorious inmates was Lyda Southard, who killed her fourth husband (and possibly his predecessors) with arsenic-laced apple pie. The prison's maximum-security building has a gallows that was used only once, in 1957. Exhibits detail such topics as prison tattoo art and the women's ward. Old Pen's gift shop sells Prison Blues, a line of jeans and other casual clothing made inside a medium-security Oregon prison. The Idaho Botanical Garden, adjacent to the Old Pen, is also worth a look. Thirteen specialty gardens bloom well into fall.

On your way back downtown, look for the historic homes of the Warm Springs neighborhood. One of these, the Idaho Heritage Inn (109 W. Idaho St.), housed several of the state's most prominent political families in the mid-20th century. It's now a noted bed-and-breakfast inn with rooms from $60.

J.F.

Not baaaaad

* October 8-10. Pamplona, Spain, has the running of the bulls; Idaho's Wood River Valley has the Trailing of the Sheep. The festival kicks off with a storytelling reception at the Ketchum Community Library on October 8. The next day, hit the Sheep Folklife Fair at Roberta McKercher Park in Hailey, where you can see sheepshearing, savor a Basque lamb dinner, and enjoy musical performances by the Scottish-influenced Boise Highlanders. At noon on October 10, watch shepherds guide hundreds of sheep directly down State 75 and Ketchum's Main Street to their high-desert winter rangeland. Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber of Commerce; (800) 634-3347.

J.F.

Rail fun

* October 8-11. The Izaak Walton Inn at the southern tip of Glacier National Park is the setting for the Alberta & Montana Rail Fan Weekend. Rail fans come from afar to shoot photographs and "chase" some of the nearly 30 trains that pass by on the Northern Burlington Santa Fe Railroad. At night, guests show slides and swap train stories. Lodging is in the inn's 33 rooms or four refurbished cabooses (from $98). Rail weekend admission, $10. Izaak Walton Inn, Glacier National Park, Essex, Montana; (406) 888-5700.