Corn Maze Challenge

Over the past decade, farmers have been turning their corn fields into giant mazes that attract thousands of visitors each year. Each maze is different in size, design and level of difficulty. Some mazes are open for only few weeks in the fall, while others are open from late summer until the end of October.

Whether you go through a corn maze together or compete against each other for the quickest times, this is a truly unique dating adventure that will challenge everyone's sense of direction.

COST

A trip through the maze costs between $2 and $10 per person, plus transportation and refreshments.

LENGTH OF DATE

Allow anywhere from one hour to three hours to complete the maze depending on its level of difficulty and your level of speed. Also keep in mind that you won't find many ten-acre corn fields in the middle of most cities, so be prepared for a long drive.

ATTIRE

This is a cornfield, not a grand ballroom. Comfortable but sturdy shoes are helpful. (Since cornfield mazes can be several acres in size, plan on walking from one to four miles.) Be sure to wear hats and sunscreen. If it's at night, bring flashlights and extra batteries.

HOW TO LOCATE A MAZE

For a list of two-hundred corn mazes throughout the U.S. and Canada, try www.cornfieldmaze.com.

For a site that gives the locations of several corn mazes in the East, visit www.cornmaze.com

Enter "corn maze" and your state's name in your search engine.

HOW IS A CORN MAZE DESIGNED?

The design is usually planned on a piece of graph paper that is a scaled-down plot of the cornfield —which can be several acres.

After the corn is planted and it's a few inches tall, pathways are marked and hoed out. The corn is then tended as if it were a regular cornfield. The average corn maze requires several hundred hours to design and prepare.

WHAT IS A MAZE?

A maze is a puzzle that you try to solve by working your way out of it, or as Webster's dictionary says, "A maze is a confusing, intricate network of winding pathways; specifically with one or more blind alleys." You might have tried to work your way out of a maze in a puzzle book with a pencil, or maybe you've been through a house of mirrors. There are two types of mazes—unicursal and multicursal. Unicursal mazes have no blind alleys and are easy to negotiate. Multicursal designs have blind alleys and branches. Working your way out of this type of maze presents a challenge. There are even threedimensional cornfield mazes that have bridges, towers and multilevel pathways.