"Frost got to the apples."
Terri Beard said it to Bath Town Council at a public meeting on May 5. She was there for the Berkeley Springs–Morgan County Chamber of Commerce to sign the agreement for the 51st annual Apple Butter Festival. She told council that local growers, including Glascock's, were worried about the year's crop. At the same meeting, the Chamber expanded the festival's beer-garden hours.
That pairing explains this October. Most of the region's apples were lost, and the festival is still growing. It has a first-ever trail race, a new Family Fun Zone, longer Saturday hours and a parade built around the town's 250th anniversary. The kettles will be back on Fairfax and Washington Streets because the parts of the weekend that never depended on the harvest are strong enough to carry it.
Two Nights in April
The damage came on two nights. Eli Cook of Spring Valley Farms told WV MetroNews that on April 8, more than 50 staff and friends ran fires, wind machines and row covers through his orchards. They saved "maybe a little less than half a peach crop and a decent apple crop." Then, around April 21, temperatures dropped to 21 or 22 degrees. "We really lost a lot on that night," Cook said.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture's July bulletin says the April freeze "wiped out much of the apple and peach crops in the Eastern Panhandle." WVDA staff toured the orchards and asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for assistance. About 50 miles away in the Winchester and Frederick County area, it was worse. Virginia Tech fruit crop expert Sherif Sherif said apple and peach crops there were "essentially wiped out." He has seen freeze damage every year since he started in 2017, and this was the first time he saw an essentially 100 percent loss in the area. "Most of the pick-your-own operations in the area did not have fruit to sell this year," he said.
Katie Orr-Dove of Orr's Farm Market in Martinsburg listed what her farm lost. All of its strawberries, sweet and tart cherries, peaches, nectarines and plums were gone, along with 60 percent of its blueberries. Then she added, "We have some apples."
For a festival named after something made from local apples, those are the conditions it opens under.
The Chamber Added to the Program Anyway
You might expect a lost harvest to shrink the event. Look at the program and it's bigger than usual.
A trail race before the festival opens. The first Apple Butter Festival Trail 5K runs Sunday, October 11, at Cacapon Resort State Park. Check-in is at 7 a.m. and the race starts at 8. Entry is $35, New River Timing Co. handles the timing, and every finisher gets a medal. The Chamber planned it so runners finish the wooded course in time to head downtown for the 10 a.m. opening.
A longer Saturday night. The West Virginia Craft, Beer, Wine & Spirits Garden now stays open until 9 p.m. on Saturday. The Morgan Messenger reported the change came from vendor demand. Garden hours are Friday 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
A parade with a 250th theme. The 9 a.m. Saturday parade is themed "Stirring Through the Centuries!" It marks the 250th anniversaries of the United States and the Town of Bath. Registration is free and limited to 75 entries. WV Explorer notes that the warm springs at what is now Berkeley Springs State Park led to the town's founding in 1776.
A Family Fun Zone. WV Explorer reports it's new this year, with games and contests for both children and adults.
None of these depends on an orchard. A course through the woods at Cacapon, a garden that stays open later, a parade about the town's history, and games for families are all things the Chamber and its partners could build this year whatever the harvest did.
Who Keeps the Kettles Going
Even the apple butter itself comes from volunteers. WV Explorer reports that Greenwood Community Center volunteers will again cook apple butter in large copper kettles over open fires downtown.
Organizers have said the shortage forced community partners to work together to keep the apple butter going. As of WV Explorer's September 24 story, they had not said how they got around it. The source of this year's kettle apples is still unannounced. Happy Rone, the Chamber's executive director, said the Chamber is excited to welcome visitors "despite the catastrophic harvest."
Much of the rest of the weekend is also volunteer-run, and the money goes back into the community:
- Parking. The Town of Bath is looking for volunteers to work three- or four-hour shifts at the Train Depot lot. Parking proceeds support OnTRAC community events and downtown projects. WV Explorer reports organizers plan free shuttles from designated parking areas, plus more parking in lots run by local civic groups.
- Baking. The baking contest is back on Saturday, October 10. Entries go to Blue Ridge Community and Technical College's Pines Opportunity Center, 109 War Memorial Drive, between 8 and 11 a.m. Judging starts at 12:15 p.m. and awards are at 2 p.m. Rone said entries support the Boys & Girls Club.
- Theater. The Ice House Theater Project is holding a costume-and-prop sale at the Ice House on October 10 and 11, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
The old favorites are back too: the beard-and-mustache contest, hog calling and the egg toss. More than 200 artists and craftspeople are expected downtown, and admission is free.
The Weekend in Order
The Chamber lists the festival as Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, with a Beer Garden Party on Friday, October 9. Here's the schedule from the published hours:
- Friday, October 9, 5 p.m. The beer garden opens for the kickoff party and stays open until 9.
- Saturday, October 10, 8 a.m. Baking contest entries open at the Pines Opportunity Center and close at 11.
- Saturday, 9 a.m. The "Stirring Through the Centuries!" parade starts.
- Saturday, 10 a.m. The festival opens. The beer garden follows at 11 and stays open until 9 p.m., three hours after the festival closes at 6.
- Saturday, 12:15 and 2 p.m. Baking contest judging, then awards.
- Sunday, October 11, 7 and 8 a.m. Trail 5K check-in and start at Cacapon.
- Sunday, 9 a.m. The service at the springs starts the day.
- Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival runs, and the beer garden is open from noon to 4.
Our research didn't turn up a published 2026 street-closure map or layout plan. Check the Chamber's festival page before you go. The Fairfax Street westbound closure the Town announced in late September was a separate repair job, not a festival closure.
Where the Apples Are This Fall
If you want apples after the festival, some farm markets are bringing in fruit from farther away this year. Orr's says the freeze wiped out its pick-your-own crops for 2026. Its September update lists the homegrown apples it did harvest: Orr's Golden Delicious, Aztec Fuji and Gala. The rest of the shelf is Ginger Gold from the USA, Red Delicious and Honeycrisp from Pennsylvania, and Zestar from New York. Orr-Dove described the approach back in May:
"So what we're finding is there's going to be more collaboration than normal. And it's going to be outside of maybe the local area, but we're going to be collaborating with other farmers to try to bring things into our farm market that we can't grow this season."
Orr's Farm Market is at 682 Orr Drive in Martinsburg. It's open Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 7 p.m., and closed Sunday. Closer to home, Glascock's Produce is listed at 5881 Highland Ridge Road, with a seasonal roadside stand on Route 522 South that usually runs Thursday through Saturday. That schedule is general information rather than a confirmed 2026 schedule, and the growers raised concerns about the crop in May. Call the farm before you drive out.
The festival is mostly built on the same idea Orr-Dove described. More than ever this year, it depends on neighbors filling in for a lost harvest, whether that means volunteers at the Greenwood kettles, parking shifts at the Train Depot or bakers dropping off entries for the Boys & Girls Club.
After the Kettles Cool
October goes on after the festival. Cacapon Resort State Park's WonderFall hike is Saturday, October 17, at 2 p.m. It's a two-mile walk on the mountain fire road, leashed dogs are welcome, and finishers get a patch. The Morgan Arts Council calendar has MAC Poetics with a Poe program on October 13, an indigo-dyeing workshop on October 17, and a CJ Davis drawing class on October 24. The holiday-show gallery reception at the Ice House follows on November 21 and 22. If you want to catch the Ice House Theater Project's dark comedy The Smell of the Kill, it runs October 1 through 4, the week before the festival.
If you know someone moving to Berkeley Springs and want them to see how Morgan County comes together in a hard year, Apple Butter weekend is a good time to show them. When questions about homes or land here come up, Marcy Smith is glad to help with honest, local answers. Let's Connect.
