Adventures at Apple Hill: Part 2 — Apples ripe for the picking at Apple Hill. Family memories made to last a lifetime.

Last Saturday my husband, David, and I decided to take the drive for some Adventures at Apple Hill. From our house in South Reno, NV to Camino, CA it’s roughly 2 hours, so it may seem like a long venture for some apples, pumpkins, and baked goods, but most Northern Nevadans agree, it is definitely worth the trip. I hadn’t been to Apple Hill in nearly a decade, so I was looking forward to the adventure. Plus, this was my son’s first time of what will hopefully be an annual event, so I felt the twinges of a new tradition in the making. With excitement in the air and the fingerlings of a cold front on the way, we hopped in the car and drove to Camino that is near Placerville, California to visit Apple Hill.

As Will mentioned in his previous post, Apple Hill isn’t just one orchard, but a community of orchards, collectively known as the Apple Hill Growers Association. In total there are over 50 farms, orchards, wineries, and markets dotting the landscape of Placerville. This makes it impossible to walk from one attraction to another, so plan on either driving and parking or catching a ride on the convenient Apple Hill Shuttle, which is essential if you want to partake in some of the excellent adult libations along the way. You see, there are a couple wineries and brewery at Apple Hill as well. The ride is free and the bus arrives at marked spots every 15-20 minutes, so it is a great option if you know you’re going to be drinking during your visit or if you just want to be green and save on emissions, it being California and all.

While I love wine, my reason for this two hour drive was simple; I wanted to pick apples. It’s important to note that not all orchards allow you to wander through the trees to pick your own apples. The orchards that do are called “U-Pick” orchards and are marked not only on the Apple Hill maps, but usually with a big sign in front. According to my most recent count, there are eleven orchards in Apple Hill that allow U-Pick and are designated on the map legend with a “UP”. I was adamant that the only places we stop were the ones that granted my family and I permission to meander through the tree lanes to fill my own bucket.

David wanted to start on the East side of Apple Hill, as it was the first from our direction. Therefore, we settled on Hangtown Kid Apple Orchard (#15).

It was a pleasant surprise that Hangtown was also organic, which we found out as we wandered the apple trees. The trees were smaller, which made it easy for my son to pick apples himself. We asked the growers, a very sweet husband and wife team, and they explained they grow dwarf Fuji apple trees, which apparently produce a sweeter apple. One taste and there was no doubt; these apples were delicious. After walking and picking for roughly 15 minutes, we brought our 15-20 apples to the growers and I was ready to shell out the cash. Imagine my surprise when the total costs came to $3! Just think, if you had purchased roughly seven to eight pounds of organic Fuji apples at a local grocery store, you would be paying a minimum of $10-$15 dollars, maybe more. With that happy news, we went to their sister orchard across the street to pick out some pumpkins.

I have actually never been to a pumpkin patch that was a real pumpkin patch with pumkins still on the vine. Usually, the pumpkins have been cleaned, stems trimmed, and they are piled on the ground just waiting for someone to pick them up.

This pumpkin patch was authentic. Pumpkins in all shapes, sizes, and colors were randomly sprawled about the place. Some were still green while others were white and of course, your traditional token orange pumpkins.

After trampling through vines and allowing C to go a little overboard with the mini pumpkins, we finally found the perfect ones. For six pumpkins it came to $17. Not too shabby.

At this point, I was starving, so our next destination was lunch. We stopped at Bodhaine Ranch (#68), mainly because there was a large wooden sign on the front that mentioned apple-smoked sausage dogs. Yummy! After some imaginative parking by my husband, we walked in and ordered some of the best sausage and apple dogs I have ever tasted. In true Apple Hill form, instead of regular condiments, we were given apple sauce. We also ordered an old-fashioned apple pie slice to share. Now, I should preface this by saying I make a mean apple pie and sadly, I wasn’t overly impressed with this one. There were crates of apples for sale that looked delicious, but we didn’t drive two hours to shop like a grocery store, so we moved on to the next U-Pick farm. David also informed me he wanted fudge, so our goals were in place.

We up to this point we stuck on the east side of Apple Hill and decided to head west. This ended up being a mistake. I’m not sure if it was the time we tried to get to the other end or an accident ahead, but we ended up only moving 500 yards in twenty minutes.

Defeated, we pulled a u-turn and headed back to the east side and to Apple Ridge Farms (#20) where I saw a sign that said, “fudge kitchen”. Thankfully, the kitchen was fully stocked with every type of fudge imaginable and they gave out free samples, a dangerous thing to do in a fudge shop. Should find yourself stopping by, I highly recommend their mint and cookies & cream flavors.

It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so we decided one more stop and then time to head home. I chose my last U-Pick, Denver Dan’s Apple Patch (#14). Denver Dan grows mainly Fuji and Golden Delicious apples but after I implored about my beloved granny smiths he told me he has one tree in the front. Fortunately, that one tree was bursting with fruit and I quickly filled a large bucket of perfect grannies. We ended up getting a few more Fujis and called it a day at Denver Dan’s Apple Patch.

Apple Hill is a must for families and children young and old in Northern Nevada. There is something so special about enjoying simple delights like picking apples. And, if fruit cultivation isn’t your thing, Apple Hill offers delicious food, merchant fairs, petting zoos, children’s activities, wine and beer tasting, and much more. I hope you take time to visit Apple Hill this year. You won’t regret it.

Adventures at Apple Hill means apples, apple fritters, apple doughnuts, caramel apples, fall wreaths, pumpkins, arts and crafts, children laughing, smiles, memories made on a fall getaway and best of all, apple butter…

Apple Hill is one of my favorite locations on the planet. It was one of the places I truly missed when my family and I moved to the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Now that we’re back in Reno, we get to enjoy all the splendor that Apple Hill has to offer; year after year.

When we were kids, Christine and I would have our own adventures at Apple Hill with our respective families near Placerville, California in Camino, California. These trips are still an amazing source of happiness for me to look back on with my brother and parents. Now that we are back in Reno, Nevada after being away for many years in Washington, DC, we have the chance to once again indulge in all things Apple Hill and have new adventures at Apple Hill. This time, however, it is different. We have children to share the experience with.

Just when September rolls around, my mood changes dramatically. It starts with the John Ascuaga’s Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off and the smell of sweet barbecue filling the air during Labor Day weekend and continues through the end of December. The smell of pumpkin spice, the color of fall foliage (can’t say that much of the color change happens in Reno and you need to get into the mountains to see it), fall decorating, Halloween, Thanksgiving and the end of year holidays. Each of these are reason enough in themselves to have a happy (inner)child the last four months of the year. I can honestly say, deep down, that my heart is happy after my recent visit to Apple Hill yesterday with my family.

Apple Hill, in case if you are unfamiliar, is a series of farms, sellers, wineries and Christmas tree farms who sell their fall harvest crops to the public. Some locations are open year-round, but most are only open from September onward through December. Each month has its own activities and specialties and that is why we are separating our posts about Apple Hill into three parts to cover September, October, November and December equally. This post will cover September.

In Apple Hill, every place you visit can have apples and everything you can make with apples from apple fritters, apple doughnuts, apple vinegar, apple juice, apple cider, huge apple pies and my favorite, by far, apple butter. If you haven’t tried it, apple butter is a butter you can put on toast and enjoy like a jelly or jam. Just writing about it is making my mouth water. Don’t worry, I picked up a jar for myself and I intend to indulge after I finish this post.

Yesterday, we got a late start and could only visit three or four locations by the time we got there around 2:30 PM. Most locations close at 5:00 PM each day. When there are over 80+ locations to visit, it’s definitely worth it to get up early and head over to Apple Hill. If you get your fill of apples, you can always make a stop at a local winery in Apple Hill or at the Jack Russel Brewery for a wine tasting or beer in between your tour of the area. Even though you may be in and out of the car all day, each location is a new adventure and our kids didn’t mind the constant in and out during the day.

The places we visited yesterday were High Hill Ranch, Kids Inc. and Boa Vista Orchards. Each of these locations is filled with its own atmosphere.

Choose Your Own Adventure…

Starting at High Hill Ranch (#1 on the map), this location is a complete stop in itself. This location has everything from shopping for produce such as apples, to a walk-up dining option (I had a half bbq chicken meal), a fishing hole that you can pay to rent a fishing pole and buy a license to catch fish from (this could be your young child’s first fishing experience; something I am partial to since working for the American Sportfishing Association on KeepAmericaFishing), an arts and crafts vending fair, hay rides, a fudge factory for your sweet tooth and much more. This place has it all.

Our kids were staring at the fishing pond the entire time we were there. They wanted to play near it and interact with the other kids who were either playing nearby or fishing in the pond with their parents.

Next, we stopped at Delfino Farms (#5 on the map). Delfino Farms, formerly known as Kids Inc., although it doesn’t boast that its former namesake was from a hit Disney television show from the 1980’s, it did have plenty of activities to do for kids that were fun. This location had a corn maze ($2 is all we paid for both our kids to go through it), an apple orchard you can walk through, a pumpkin patch, a grassy hill for a picnic and a bluegrass band was playing while we were there. The location also had face painting and again another place to buy apples and everything made of apples.

Our final stop of the day was to pick up the holy grail of foods from Apple Hill, apple butter. We also got something else I need when we visit Apple Hill, apple cider.

Boa Vista Orchards is a great location and a place you must stop while visiting Apple Hill. Not only for the good food, but for the arts and crafts and stuff you can purchase and take home with you. Their apple pies are enormous and have the appearance of a mound when you purchase them in the frozen food area. Also, their apple cider has no comparison to any other apple product I have tasted off the Hill.

Even though these were the only three stops that we could make during our visit yesterday, it was more than enough to satisfy my yearning for fall and to visit Apple Hill. We’ll be back more than once this season as it is only a two and a half hour drive from Reno, Nevada. It is a must-see fall destination if you live in the area. It’s a place where memories are made, bellies are filled and the harvest is bountiful. I highly recommend a visit for your own adventures at Apple Hill.