(Radio Iowa) – A heavily wooded state park in northwest Iowa is the site of an unusual event held this Saturday. It’s called the “Fright Hike” and it covers about half a mile in Fort Defiance State Park near Estherville. Lexie Ruter is executive director of the Estherville Chamber of Commerce. “We are getting everything prepped and ready to go for our one-night-only event where we usually get 1200 people out in three and a half hours,” she says, “so it’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun.”

This will be the 11th annual Fright Hike — held the Saturday before Halloween each year — held in the woods of the state park that’s about two-and-a-half miles outside of Estherville.  “We’ve got a lot of new people doing some new things this year, so it should be scary and not just the same thing as every year before,” Ruter says. “so hopefully everyone leaves scared, having had a good time.” The “Fright Night” festivities begin just before sunset this Saturday, but Ruter says the half mile route will be lit for the first hour.

“From 6 to 7 p.m. we have our ‘lights on’ hour which is when we encourage those who want a little bit less of a scary experience to come out. We do kind of take it a little bit easier if there is a child who is upset or something like that. We will back off between 6 and 7 p.m.,” Ruter says. “From 7 to 9:30 is a ‘full scare,’ so those two and a half hours are your typical haunted hour style scarings.”

A ticket to the Fright Hike at Fort Defiance is 10 dollars. Halloween has become one of the biggest consumer holidays of the year and the National Retail Federation predicts Americans will spend a record 12-point-two BILLION dollars on Halloween costumes, candy, decorations and haunted houses this year. The National Retail Federation’s annual survey found seven out of 10 people said they would participate in Halloween activities.