Visitor’s Guide to the Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze

The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze comes to New York’s Hudson Valley every fall, and as a self-professed Halloweenie, it’s one of my favorite haunts. It’s a must-see if you love Halloween, autumn, and pumpkins.

What is the Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze?

The Blaze is a walk-through trail illuminated by jack-o’-lanterns. Thousands of intricately hand-carved pumpkins light up the night sky in larger-than-life displays. According to the Blaze’s official website, local artisans hand-carve over 7,000 pumpkins each year. That’s a shit load of pumpkins. Synchronized lighting, a soundtrack, and special effects enhance your visit.

The blazing jack-o’-lanterns are located on the historic grounds of 18th-century Van Cortlandt Manor¹ in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Historic Hudson Valley, an educational non-profit, organizes The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze each year. 2025 dates run from September 12 to November 16.²

A Museum of Jack-o’-Lanterns

The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze is like an open-air museum of hand-carved art. In this case, the medium happens to be pumpkins, which are organic matter (i.e., fruit) and ephemeral (not meant to last a long time). So, what can you expect to see at the Blaze?

Larger-than-life Structures

Feast your eyes on actual structures made of pumpkins. Among my favorites are the Headless Horseman Bridge from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” an emoji wall, dinosaurs, a planetarium, and a windmill. In addition, be on the lookout for some iconic New York landmarks.

Museum of Pumpkin Art

This is my favorite section, and it’s totally meta. It’s a “museum” of pumpkins carved and arranged into well-known paintings and sculptures. By representing actual artworks, the hand-carved pumpkins become artworks in and of themselves. So effing cool.

You’ll see a Frida Kahlo portrait, Girl with Balloon by Banksy, Pumpkin Soup a la Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans, American Gothic by Grant Wood, The Scream by Edvard Munch, LOVE by Robert Indiana, and much more. Be sure to look for the classic jack-o’-lantern face inserted into each one. Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman even makes an appearance…

Small Jack-o’-lanterns

Standard jack-o’-lanterns with carved faces are a staple at the Blaze, as well as cute pumpkin people engaging in awesome activities like swallowing swords. Other singular pumpkins are carved with artistic designs like Celtic knotwork.

Tips, Tricks, and Treats

Tickets & Parking

The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze has a standard timed ticket that you must purchase in advance. You can also purchase a flex ticket that is good for any date and time. Check out the Blaze’s website for more info.

I advise you to get your tickets early! This event sells out quickly.

If you have a timed ticket, be sure to get there early because traffic can be a bitch. It can be a long wait to even get into the parking lot. Parking is free, though, so yay!

Timing & Audience

The Blaze is family-friendly. There aren’t any spooky actors jumping out to scare you or creepy horror displays. This isn’t a haunted house-type deal.

It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to do the walk-through, but you can take your time. No one is going to kick you out unless it’s closing time.

Treats

Fear not, the Blaze feeds you. Café Blaze offers apple cider, hot cocoa, beer, and snacks. In my opinion, there’s nothing like hot cocoa and a cider donut on a nice fall evening. Drinks and food are available for purchase and are not included with your standard timed ticket.

For more adult-themed libations, you can purchase a combo ticket (in advance) to experience the Gourd & Goblet Tavern. It’s a new VIP experience with alcoholic beverages and sweets served in an 18^th-century inn. The tavern is recommended for visitors ages 18 and up.

Alcoholic beverages are also available at the new Headless Horseman Hideaway. This family fun venue also includes non-alcoholic drinks and German snacks. The latter is a nod to the Horseman’s roots. For those not familiar with the tale, he was a Hessian mercenary during the Revolutionary War. Our favorite Hessian may appear at the Hideaway, and although he’s missing a head, he’s always ready for a photo op.

Finally, there’s a cute shop called Blaze Boo-tique, which has jack-o’-lantern and Halloween merch.

Special Occasions at The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze

The Blaze allows you to celebrate a special occasion with personalized pumpkins, whether it be for an anniversary, birthday, or marriage proposal. When I went in 2024, a guy asked his girlfriend to marry him under the Celebration Arch with his proposal carved in a pumpkin. He asked my brother to film the whole thing on his phone as a bystander. If by the tiniest chance, the man and his fiancée are reading this – Congratulations! (She said yes.)

All in all, The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze is a fun, must-see Halloween experience. It’s such a wonderful treat to witness beautifully hand-carved pumpkins blazing up the night.

Have you ever been to the Blaze or something similar? Share in the comments below.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of jack-o’-lanterns, check out the article The Origins of the Jack-o’-lantern.

For a Halloween travel-themed post, see Spookiest Places to Celebrate Halloween in the U.S.

Footnotes

1. Not to be confused with Van Cortlandt House Museum in the Bronx, New York. Same historic family, different houses. ↩︎
2. As of 2025, the Blaze will not be returning to Long Island, NY. ↩︎

Bibliography and Further Reading

Historic Hudson Valley. “The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze.” 2024. https://pumpkinblaze.org/index.html

Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories. Edited by Elizabeth L. Bradley. Penguin Classics, 2014.

A Bit of Halloween Relaxation

*These and the Washington Irving link above are Amazon affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no cost to you.

I fucking love coloring. It’s relaxing as hell and lets my creativity flow. What I love even more than coloring is Halloween coloring. It brings joy to my heart to color in jack-o’-lanterns and other Halloween icons.

The Beauty of Horror: Tricks and Treats Halloween Coloring Book by Alan Robert is one of my go-tos. It’s part of a larger series, each one full of gore and horror. Suffice it to say, unlike the Blaze, this coloring book is not family-friendly.

Another Halloween horror coloring book is Freak of Halloween by Crook Crook. Nothing says relaxation like coloring in a skeleton eating an eyeball.

A less terrifying adult coloring book is Color & Frame’s Halloween. This one is a more PG-13 vibe with jack-o’-lanterns galore.

Happy Coloring!