Basecamp podcast: Pats Peak, King Pine each celebrating 60 years

King Pine and Pats Peak are both havens for novices (King Pine Ski Area)

Two New Hampshire ski areas are celebrating 60 years of operation this season. 

Pats Peak general manager Kris Blombeck and King Pine director of marketing Thomas Prindle joined Basecamp podcast hosts Eric Wilbur and Mike Specian to discuss the legacies of each ski area, and why they’ve both been able to be so successful over the decades. 

“I think both King Pine and Pats Peak are the longest, continually-owned areas in, if not all of New England, certainly northern New England,” Blombeck said. “It’s a real testament to the independent spirit here over in the Granite State.” 

Listen:

Highlights from this edition of the Basecamp podcast:

On Pats Peak’s snowmaking prowess: 

Blombeck: “The joke is at Pats Peak that we’re a snowmaking system with a ski area attached. And we are absolutely fanatical about making snow. When you are 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, she has a lot to say about what kind of ski season you’re going to have. We knew that, being down here in Southern New Hampshire, what we refer to as the Banana Belt, you need to have robust snowmaking capabilities.” 

On King Pine on a powder day: 

Prindle: When the powder hits in our region, King Pine is the type of place you can go to and you can wake up kind of late. You don’t have to be first chair because people don’t generally gravitate to King Pine for powder.  You can end up doing laps and be getting fresh lines and be banking a whole lot of vertical.

The podcast can be streamed at skijournal.com/podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon.