HAMILTON — This time every year the Bitterroot Valley’s traditional apple festival returns to Hamilton.
Macintosh Apple Day is this Saturday, October 7, 2023, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Volunteers from the community have spent hours in the days leading up to the event prepping apples for the 700 pies sold at the event.
The festival is free, but donations and pie sales benefit the Ravalli County Museum.
The entire event is run by over 200 hours of volunteer work, according to the museum’s executive director Michelle Nowling.
“Our volunteers are amazing, like I just can’t say that enough,” she says.
On Wednesday, Oct. 4, volunteers gathered at St. Francis Catholic Church in Hamilton to start peeling the 42 cases of apples.
Even with close to 30 volunteers, the process took hours.
“You would think 700 pies would be a lot of work, which it is, but many hands make light work and people chat and laugh and make new friends,” Bowling says.
On Thursday, people come back to make the filling and bake the pies.
Deb Strickland has volunteered every year since 2014, and despite not having a liking for pies, it’s one of her favorite events of the year.
“Oh I love doing it,” she says. “And I think the opportunity for Apple Days for the community is something that goes over really really big.”
Students at the Trapper Creek Job Corps, as well to gain experience in the workforce and in the community.
“We’re just here to volunteer and get some experience on volunteer work, get into the community,” Trapper Creek Job Corps student body president Logan Medd says.
With over 170 different vendors, apple pie isn’t the only treat at the festival. There will be caramel apples, apple fritters, apple butter and apple cider.
Later in the evening is an alcoholic cider and a brewfest.
“So for me, it’s an entire day, like a 16-hour day of just fun and people and food,” Nowling says.
Apple Day is a celebration of the valley’s “apple boom” from the 1880s to the 1920s when many families made their living from Macintosh orchards.
“You can still find Macintosh apple trees all over,” Nowling says. “So we come together each year to share that story and eat a lot of pie.”
The apples for the pies were ordered from Swanson’s Mountain View Apple Orchard in Corvallis.
