As they wandered through the forest, the sojourners encountered many strange characters along the path: minstrels, fairies, mermaids, knights in armor — even a falcon and an eagle or two.
The path wasn’t in Narnia or Middle Earth, but one of the wilder stretches of South Platte Park, which became the Enchanted Forest on Oct. 25.
“We couldn’t do some of our normal Halloween programming this year, but we wanted to come up with something festive,” said park interpreter Victoria Sutton, who spearheaded the Enchanted Forest walk.
Sutton and others reached out to a coterie of Colorado Renaissance Festival performers, who were otherwise unable to don their costumes this year after the festival was canceled.
In addition to the performers, costumed youngsters met harpists, bagpipers, and volunteers from the HawkQuest birds-of-prey rescue showing off some of the center’s mighty birds.
“This really did turn out great,” Sutton said. “Downright magical. I think this could come back every year. It could be big. We’re talking food truck big.”