By RYAN E. SMITH

BLADE STAFF WRITER

 

If anyone knows how to get out of a maze, it's probably Shawn Stolworthy.

 

The Idaho man has designed and cut about 75 corn mazes across the country this year, including ones in Van Wert, Ohio, and Dundee, Mich.

 

His personal solution?

 

"Most of the time, I have GPS when I'm in a maze. That tends to work fairly well," said Stolworthy, president of a business called MazePlay.

 

For the rest of us, though, he has another idea, and it's not just to walk around at random, paying attention to where you've been before.

 

Stolworthy suggests you keep your hand on one "wall" and keep it there until it leads you to the exit. It may not be the shortest route, he said, but it should get the job done.

Local maze-goers will need all the help they can get this fall as corn mazes sprout up around northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

As the foliage turns colors, area cornfields turn up with all sorts of shapes and designs cut into them. This year that means everything from a rodeo to Mount Rushmore.

 

The trouble isn't finding your way into these labyrinths of fun; it's getting out. In fact, that's kinda the idea.

 

"We tell [people] to come out and get lost," said Evie Leaders, owner of Leaders Fun*Time Farm and ScreamAcres haunted cornfield in Napoleon.

 

Her operation - a seven-acre maze in the shape of a pirate ship - offers clues to patrons.

 

"If they get the right answer, it tells them the right way to turn," she said.

 

Some mazes hand visitors a map before they go in; others hide them at stations throughout the maze.

 

Trisha Truman, whose parents own the corn mazes at Fleitz Pumpkin Farm in Oregon, said they have a lookout tower to help give visitors a better view of their surroundings.

 

For those visitors who get helplessly lost, some mazes have people inside to offer directions.

 

Rod Cooper, owner of Kernel Coopers Corn Maze in Van Wert, said it's not so bad.

 

Sure, his twisting paths are spread over 15 acres and there are 5.7 miles of maze in which to lose yourself. And once it gets dark, well, that doesn't help.

 

But after you've been in there a few times, it's just plain easy, he said.