A full-scale Highway 52 apple-belt festival with pig races, a jumping pillow and thirteen-odd attractions — and a weekend price roughly $8 a head above the weekday one, which is the single biggest lever you have here.
Gilmer County Chamber lists farm-activity admission at $14 weekdays and $22 weekends; the farm's own festivals page also shows $22.00 per person for walking age and up. U-pick apple bags are bought separately after paying admission. Year of these figures is not stated.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $56.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Hillcrest is one of the anchor stops on the Highway 52 apple run east of Ellijay, and it is a festival operation rather than a farm stand. The published attraction list — swimming pig races, wagon rides, a cow train, a petting farm, a kiddie corn maze, mini golf, a jumping pillow, pedal carts, pony rides, nature trails and a bakery — is long enough that the ticket only makes sense if you commit half a day to it.
The pricing is the thing to plan around, and it is genuinely unusual how large the weekday discount is. The Chamber’s figure of $14 on weekdays against $22 at weekends is a 36 percent difference. For two adults and two children that is $56 versus $88 for the same orchard, the same rides and the same pigs. The trade is that the Apple Pickin Jubilee — the actual festival programming — runs Saturdays and Sundays. So the honest framing is: weekends buy you the festival and the crowd, weekdays buy you the farm at two-thirds price with more room to move.
Admission does not include apples. You pay to get in, then you buy a u-pick bag. Nobody hides this, but it is the most common budget surprise at north Georgia orchards, and it is worth telling a child before rather than after that the apples cost extra. Add a bakery stop, which is very much the point of visiting an orchard in Gilmer County, and the real spend runs well above the gate price.
This is the part of Georgia where autumn works properly — cool mornings, real colour on the ridges, apples that grew where you are standing and corn that was cut where it grew. It is also, for about three weekends in mid to late October, some of the slowest driving in the state. Apple traffic, leaf traffic and festival traffic converge on the same two-lane highway, and orchards along it fill their lots by late morning. Going early is worth more than any coupon.
We have deliberately left the season fields empty. The orchard’s own site describes a u-pick season starting September 1, 2026; its festivals page shows an undated window of August 31 to October 27. Those cannot both be this year, and rather than pick one and be confidently wrong we would rather tell you to call 706-273-3838. Given that hours are 9am to 6pm in September and October with ticket sales stopping an hour before close, the call is worth making anyway.
A weekday, and it is not close. The Gilmer County Chamber lists farm-activity admission at $14 on weekdays against $22 at weekends, so a family of four saves about $32 simply by taking a Thursday instead of a Saturday. Hours are 9am to 6pm in September and October and 9am to 5pm in November, with ticket sales ending an hour before closing. The Apple Pickin Jubilee — the pig races and the full festival programme — runs Saturdays and Sundays, so a weekday visit trades the festival for the price and the space.
Half a day. With mini golf, a jumping pillow, pedal carts, a cow train, a kiddie maze, pony rides, wagon rides, nature trails and a petting farm on the ticket, an hour-long visit is a waste of $22.
October weekends on Highway 52 east of Ellijay are the busiest few miles of road in north Georgia, because apple season, leaf season and fall-festival season all land in the same fortnight and all use the same two-lane highway. The Jubilee weekends are the peak of the peak.
Nothing is published about the surface. Orchard lots in this area are generally grass or gravel, so treat mud as a live risk after rain and wear flat closed shoes.
You want a pumpkin patch specifically. This is an apple orchard with a fall festival attached — the published list has u-pick apples, a kiddie corn maze and a bakery, but no pumpkin field. Also skip the weekend rate if a quieter Thursday would suit you just as well.
Red Apple Barn sits on the other side of Ellijay on Tails Creek Road and runs the low-key, free-entry version of the same idea. If Hillcrest at $22 a head on a Saturday sounds like more than you want, that is the natural alternative rather than an add-on.
The Gilmer County Chamber lists $14 on weekdays and $22 at weekends for farm activities. The orchard's own festivals page shows $22 per person for everyone of walking age and up. Neither source states which year those figures apply to, so confirm at the gate.
No. U-pick apple bags are bought separately after you have paid to get in, which is a common structure at north Georgia orchards and a common surprise.
Unclear, and we have chosen not to guess. The orchard's own site describes a u-pick season beginning September 1, 2026, while its festivals page shows an undated August 31 to October 27 window. Those cannot both describe the same year, so we have left the season dates blank rather than publish a date we cannot stand behind.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Farm open daily; the Apple Pickin' Jubilee runs Saturdays and Sundays from late August through October. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission starts at $14 per person. Gilmer County Chamber lists farm-activity admission at $14 weekdays and $22 weekends; the farm's own festivals page also shows $22.00 per person for walking age and up. U-pick apple bags are bought separately after paying admission. Year of these figures is not stated.
9696 Hwy 52 E, Ellijay, GA 30536, in Gilmer County. It is one of 14 patches we track in North Georgia.
We track 14 patches in North Georgia, 6 of which are free to walk into. At $14 a head this one sits below the regional median of $15.81, undercutting 2 of the 4 paid patches we track here.
What sets it apart locally: it has u-pick fields, a market, bakery or taproom, which most North Georgia patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 6 of the 14 patches we track in North Georgia had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There are 3 other patches we track in Gilmer County. All North Georgia patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
hillcrestorchards.net
Checked August 2026.