During the 2024 year, Tami Howard and her husband, Walter Howard, who are corporate lawyers during the day and scare trail owners by night, have continued to expand their haunted trail, Leech Woods.
Leech Woods is a haunted trail located on Bethesda Church Road in Damascus during the months of October and the first weekend in November. A new hayride trail has been added to their attraction for the season.
A guest at Leech Woods, Julia Tomaski, mentioned, “The trail was fun and it was really good. The decor was amazing.”
Leech Woods Trails had humble beginnings. The couple started by building a haunted trail where they would throw Halloween parties in their backyard. Soon, the Howard’s saw a rise in how many people would be at their house.
“We hosted a halloween party at our house, and for four years we did it, and it built to over a thousand people … [before] our neighbors asked us to do it somewhere else,” Tami Howard said.
At this point, they decided to move their set up to the cornfield on Bethesda Church Road in Damascus, Maryland and continued to gain in popularity. Since lots of effort was being put into the haunted trails and parties in their backyard, they took it upon themselves to move their operation and create a partnership between her, her husband and her son.
Designing the layout for the main trail and the new hayride trail is important to keep customers moving smoothly and continuously moving forward. Howard stated that her husband manages all of the projects that involve building the structures around the trail.
“How my husband designs the trail, he always scares forward, so he builds it so that the actors and the people are always moving forward to get people through the line,” Tami Howard said.”
The way the trails are laid out helps ensure that people can not go backwards and back out through the entrance of the trail.
In the Howard family’s partnership, each person has their own responsibility for running the seasonal business. Walter builds the trails and structures . Tami’s son, John, runs the social media accounts, while Tami herself hires the employees and makes sure permits are in place for keeping the trail open. Splitting up the responsibilities has allowed them to successfully open a haunted trail that has been a hit since it opened three years ago.
To operate this popular haunted trail, the owners have to know how to keep people safe, including customers and scare actors. The Howards are able to do this because of the security they keep on the property.
“We have security, [who are] undercover that not even the actors know about, and they’re placed throughout [the trail], so some are customers, some are actors in our trail [and] some are in the village,” Tami Howard said.
The way that Howard is able to keep everyone safe helps produce this is a pleasant experience for both actors and customers. The owners have also set up areas called check points, which also help maintain safety by keeping out those who could be intoxicated or on a substance.
To create a story behind Leech Woods, the owners decided to combine their family history with the history of the land the haunted trail utilizes.
“So we kinda mixed the history of the area and the history of the Leechs together,” Howard said. “This story contains a family being murdered and [how] they haunt the land the trail is on, making the actors supposed dead bodies of the family.”
The new hayride trail also continues this storyline but has a little more significance than the main trail. Howard wanted to make something different because almost everyone else has either done a trail or hayride; he wanted to combine both to make it more enjoyable for guests. As Howard explained, he wanted a different experience for guests that was “shorter and more intense.”
When interviewing Julianne Joyal, who was a first time guest at Leech Woods, she commented, “Everyone on the trail was super scary and really nice, it was a great experience.”
As the family builds their trails each year, they come up with ideas for how they can improve the trails to ensure it is not the same as before. They take two months off every year to help gather ideas and props for the upcoming year. Howard discussed how much effort and time it takes to set up a haunted trail.
“I mean even in December we’re buying things for the next year, and we’re working on the permit for the next year,” Tami Howard said. So, it’s kind of like a 12-month, year[-long] business.”
The new trail has been a great addition to the trail, and the Howard’s would like to expand on the land, even coming up with a laser tag game for customers to hunt the actors that are dressed as zombies. This provides a unique and different haunted trail for patrons.
“We’re super excited, and obviously we update our current trail … every year we expand part of it,” Tami Howard said. This means people can look forward to different attractions each year, instead of the same thing repeatedly.
Leech woods is an area that is built by the owners and some of the employees. Each year, they put hard work into making sure people are safe, having fun and making memories with the trail. The Howards are able to make sure everyone who visits or works there has an enjoyable experience.
The trail ends this weekend on November 2nd so stop by and have fun.
