Cedaredge Applefest

At eight on the Saturday morning of Applefest, runners gather at the northwest corner of Cedaredge Town Park for the start of the 5K Run and Walk, held in 2026 for the 18th time. The organizers call the run a challenging course and give its length as 3.3 miles. The walk covers about 2 miles out among the orchards. The top three finishers in each age and sex category receive a medal cut from apple wood. A photograph in the Delta County Independent shows an earlier field leaving Main and Fifth streets in the rain.

By nine the vendors are open. The festival fills the park block between SW 2nd Avenue and Main Street in Cedaredge, a Delta County town of more than 2,500 people at 6,200 feet below Grand Mesa. The town calls itself the Southern Gateway to the Grand Mesa. It lies at the junction off Highway 65, where the 63-mile Grand Mesa Scenic and Historic Byway begins. The Town of Cedaredge hosts Applefest on the first full weekend in October and counts more than 200 vendors and more than 30,000 attendees a year. The art, craft and gift area is juried by a panel of artists, craftspeople, collectors and local business owners. In 2026 the grounds ran October 3 and 4, from 9 to 5 on Saturday and 9 to 4 on Sunday. Delta County Tourism listed the weekend as Friday through Sunday. The Independent’s schedule started it a day earlier still, with the Five Alarm Chili Cookoff at the Cedaredge Volunteer Fire Department on Thursday evening, October 1, and two sets of live music at The Pondy on Friday.

Many visitors arrive by bus. The Delta County School District runs a free shuttle from the Lions Club Pavilion lot by the Fort Uncompahgre Interpretive Center in Delta, across from Bill Heddles Recreation Center, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. both days. It joins a circular route that stops at Pioneer Town, the Apple Shed, Foodtown and the church lots in town.

The bandstand, the beer garden and the outhouse

Music starts at 11 a.m. on the Starr’s Guitars Bandstand in Town Park. David Starr of Starr’s Guitars puts the lineup together each year. On Saturday, October 3, 2026, The Ordinary Two opened, followed by Ellen Stapenhorst, Broadbooks and Joyful Ruckus, with The HayMaker Band closing at 4. Sunday ran Dan Morgan, Lindsay Arnold, Jeri Arbaney and Synergy, and DanceBanditz. A second stage, the Starr’s Guitars Outdoor Stage, carries a program presented by Palisade Brewing Company.

The beer garden opens at 10 a.m., and the Aspen Bar pours from 10 to 5 on Saturday. Local wineries, cideries, tap rooms and bars sell drinks across the grounds. A drinking wristband and a glass come from the town’s alcohol glass booth, and only after the buyer shows a physical ID or one on the myColorado app. The town’s second booth sells Applefest shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies and stickers. The town asks that dogs stay at home, citing dog fights at past festivals and dogs left in cars.

The contests are on Saturday afternoon. The pie eating contest, sponsored by Cedaredge Food Town, starts at 1:30 with one round for adults and one for children. The stein holding contest follows at 2. The outhouse stuffing contest is at 3, and teams enter by showing up.

Apple Lane and the pie tables

Surface Creek orchard growers sell their fruit on Apple Lane. One of them is Santiago Barajas, who came to the area from Jalisco, Mexico, in April 1978. He worked for Fuller Orchards in Palisade, then for Don Williams in Surface Creek for 24 years, and later with Jack and then Chris Wagner of Wags Orchards. In 2004 he bought a house on one acre near the orchards on Nowhere Road. He then added 20 acres, and later another 20. Barajas Dream Orchards grows honeycrisp, fuji and gala apples, with peaches and vegetables. He sells at farmers markets in Basalt, Gunnison and Delta and ships to customers across the country.

Breakfast is pancakes, served from 7:30 to 10:30 both mornings by the FFA Alumni & Supporters at the Cedaredge Civic Center. At the Lions Club Pavilion, Rotary members sell apple pies they have baked. The Lions Club holds a barbecue there on Saturday, and the Little Sprouts Barbecue takes the pavilion on Sunday. Food trucks work the grounds both days. Off the grounds, the festival’s own list sends visitors to the Coffee Barn, Connie’s Family Restaurant, La Familia, Lost Mesa Grill, Cat’s on Main, Sips on Main, Stoney Mesa Winery and Sugar Mama’s Bakery at the Apple Shed.

Some of the program is indoors at the Grand Mesa Arts and Events Center. In 2026, eleven Colorado authors and illustrators signed and sold their books in its Bank of Colorado Theatre from 9 to 4 both days. Among the titles were David Rasmussen’s The Man Who Moiled for Gold and Hiking the Grand Mesa: A Clementine the Rescue Dog Story, illustrated by Barbara Torke and written by Kyle Torke. A members’ art exhibit hangs in the Starr Family Gallery, and children have the Art Garage from 10 to 2 on Saturday.

Chrome at Pioneer Town

Pioneer Town, the historical village of the Surface Creek Valley Historical Society at 388 S. Grand Mesa Drive, holds the car show on Saturday morning. The 2026 show was the 33rd. Cars filled the village from 9 to 1:30 while Hold Fast Audio played classic tunes, and the Colorado Pin-up Club came out for the day. Visitors voted until 12:30 to choose the Top 15 People’s Choice winners, and the Best in Show trophies were presented at 1:30. The Miss Applefest Pinup Contest is held there at noon. According to the Delta County Independent, the show kept going through 2020. When it paired back up with Applefest, it drew around 120 cars.

The Classic and Vintage Motorcycle Show opens at 10. Dwight and Karen Benson began showing vintage motorcycles more than 30 years ago and later timed their exhibit to coincide with Applefest. Dwight brought in Wayne Frame, a Cedaredge motorcycle collector, to help. A staff writer for the High Country Shopper describes Western Slope owners polishing chrome and conditioning leather each year as the leaves turn, getting their machines ready for the show.

Five long tables in the Champion building

The festival’s own account starts with fruit. Early settlers in the Surface Creek Valley planted apples, peaches and other fruit in its temperate climate. In 1909 the Cedaredge and Surface Creek growers who entered the National Apple Show won more prizes than any other entrants in the nation.

Ronn Brewer, a past mayor of Cedaredge and author of A History of the Surface Creek Valley and the Town of Cedaredge, traces the festival back further. In September 1904 the ladies of the Women of Woodcraft set aside a day for what became the Harvest Home Festival. They gathered specimens of the valley’s produce and put them on exhibit in the Cedaredge Hall Building, and an estimated 200 people came over two days.

The third Harvest Home Festival was held on September 18, 1906, in the new Champion building, which was then nearing completion. Five long tables held fruits and vegetables grown in the valley, and Brewer writes that visitors were amazed at what the valley was producing. Prizes went to the best exhibits. The afternoon brought horse races, burro races, foot races, a ladies’ race, wheelbarrow races, three-legged races, sack races and a cracker eating contest. In the evening the women served a large dinner at the Cedaredge Hall Building, followed by a literary program, music and a dance. The hall was too small for everyone who wanted to dance.

By 1913 the new Eckert High School had been built, and the first Harvest Festival for the whole Surface Creek Valley was held there, also in 1914 and 1915. The celebrations stopped during World War I. In 1923 the Calendar Club put on a bazaar at the Cedaredge Community Church, which was referred to as the Harvest Home Festival. In the 1930s, under the shorter name Harvest Festival, the exhibits filled the Cedaredge High School auditorium for several years, with students and the church running the event. In 1936 Vista Bayfield, a senior at the high school, was crowned queen.

There was little celebration in the valley in the 1940s, and the next Harvest Festival came in September 1958. It was tied to the newly organized Little Britches Rodeo and made for a full weekend of a parade and rodeos every day and evening from Friday through Sunday. The first rodeo had 54 contestants and a queen contest. The two events were held together until 1970, when Little Britches moved to the first week of July.

The organizer dates its annual celebration to 1977. Brewer writes that the Cedaredge Harvest Festival was renamed Applefest in 1978 and was run by the newly formed Cedaredge Chamber of Commerce as a two-day event. Craft and food vendors came, and so did political candidates, and several hundred people attended. By 1980 attendance had reached several thousand, with close to 200 vendors. The Surface Creek Valley Historical Society was organized by 1987, and its new museum gave travelers another reason to stop. In 1991 the scenic and historic byway over Grand Mesa on Highway 65 was approved and dedicated, which brought more tourists to the area and to the festival. Brewer notes that the festival weekend coincides with the fall color on the mesa. In 2018 Alisha Komives became executive director of the Cedaredge Area Chamber of Commerce and began coordinating that year’s Applefest at once. The Town of Cedaredge now hosts the festival, and its 2026 map labels the event the 49th annual.

The Champion building, where the five tables of produce stood in 1906, still stands at 180 W. Main Street.