The Aftermath Haunted House is put on by the Cañon City Recreation and Park District. With it only open 4 days of the season, imagine my pleasant surprise to find this attraction had a 1.5 hour wait to get inside. According to the CCREC website, it is a fundraiser for the Kids Klub that they host.
The drive to the haunted house is pretty standard, after a few minutes on neighborhood roads, you come up on the Canon City Recreational building. They ask that you park in the lots in front of the Dog park and Riverwalk on either side of Ash street. Once you do, you will need to walk to the Rec building to purchase tickets.
Tickets for this attraction cost $20 for general admission, and for the first time this year they are offering Fast Pass tickets for $40. You will not be able to purchase tickets online, and will have to pay for them on site. Once you have your tickets in hand, follow the marked signs for your designated path.
As I mentioned earlier, the lines got very long very quickly. We arrived at 6:45pm, the attraction opened at 7pm, and we entered the haunted house at 8:42. Luckily they had music playing, and I had some good company, so the wait seemed to pass by, and near the end of the wait I noticed several line actors entertaining the queue. When we got to the front of the line, the person taking tickets informed us of the rules, and requested that we not use our phones or extra lights, and to just enjoy the experience for what it is.
With the housekeeping information out of the way, I now get to talk about the haunt that surprised me with its sets and themes.
We only spent about 25 minutes inside this attraction, but it felt so much longer than that. This is an indoor/outdoor experience, that is as much a hike as a maze through one of the houses. We went down no less than 2 slides, and were mocked as we stumbled our way lost through a house.
This all began when we found a seemingly free-standing wall and door in the woods. We were unsure if we were supposed to enter, so we knocked and got a creepy “come in!!!” as a response. This is when the woods came to life with monsters. Some blocked our path, some crawled after our feet, some tried to reach up and grab us as we crossed a very rickety bridge.
We followed the dark path through several twists and turns, and I personally got spooked by a man in a cloak who grew to twice his height. This wouldn’t be the last time we saw stilt walkers in this attraction either.
We were then made to enter a house, and I can honestly say this place left us completely bamboozled. We walked through several eerie scenes before being led into a near-dark maze, with creatures moving through the walls around us. We most certainly got lost, and when we asked an actor to point us in the right direction, they either ignored our question, or quietly opened a door we had not previously seen.
At one point we were made to go through a revolving door, and at another we were forced to choose a random door to try and find the right path. We chose a door only to be met by a jumpscare by another actor, and eventually we were shown mercy by the actress leading us through the correct door.
We also traveled up and down several levels via stairs, and a slide. There were also several well done statue scares upstairs, as well as other indoor stilt walkers. When we finally stumbled our way outside, we had to take a moment and go, “What the F*** Did we just experience?”
I saw actors of all ages in the woods. Some loomed over me and stalked me down the path, and I admit jumped a couple times when some younger actors crawled out towards us. We went down a second slide in the woods, before heading towards the exit. We were met by several layers to the ending scare, before we were let out into a field I assume it meant to allow people to run in fear if they are especially jumpy.
Overall, it was a great experience. There were actors of all skill sets, some new, some veteran. Costume and makeup was relatively good overall, and it worked well in the scenes. It was a pretty unsettling experience from beginning to end. They are only open two more days this season, the 22nd, and the 29th, so get out there, support the Cañon City Recreation and Park District, and see this beast of a fundraiser haunt.
