New Hampshire ski areas Pats Peak, King Pine both celebrating 60 years

King Pine Ski Area serves up some fun terrain with 350 feet of vertical and diversions including tubing. (King Pine)

Not all mountains are blessed with 4,000-foot summits, 2,000 feet of vertical and enough high-speed ochos and quads to move a small city in an hour. The key to a ski area’s success is getting or making dependable snow and seeing to it that the customers come out, have a fun time and want to keep coming back.

New Hampshire has a pair of those gems in Pats Peak and King Pine that are both celebrating their 60th anniversaries this season.

The secrets to their success have been knowing what works for them. In a time when ownership groups are often nowhere near the mountains, these two establishments remain in the same family tree as when they started, during the Kennedy administration. The Hoyt Family, led by general manager Andrew Mahoney (his last name might be Mahoney, but his middle name is Hoyt), runs King Pine, and Wayne Patenaude serves as president of Pats Peak.

Madison’s King Pine has 100 percent snowmaking on its 17 trails and terrain park over 50 skiable acres. Its summit elevation tops out around 850 feet, with 350 feet vertical.

“We have a nice variety of trails from beginner trails to expert trails with some steep terrain,” Mahoney, the grandson of ski area founder Milt Hoyt, said. The resort breaks it down as 44 percent beginner, 31 percent intermediate and 25 percent advanced.

King Pine might be smaller than most other New Hampshire mountains, but the atmosphere makes it the type of place where people will want to begin their passion for skiing and snowboarding.

“We have a loyal base of customers that have come back for generations,” Mahoney said. “Obviously, some of them may move on to bigger mountains, but when they have kids and they want to get their kids going on skis, they tend to visit us. We’re very thankful for that because that’s been our bread and butter through the years.”

Mahoney is the third generation of Hoyts to run the ski area, but the family goes back even further, to the late 19th century with what started out as a water-bottling operation, the development of Purity Spring Resort, and the addition of campgrounds nearby.

King Pine also offers more than skiing during the winter with an ice skating rink, cross-country skiing, tubing and snowshoeing all on property. Mahoney even pointed out that there are plenty of guests who use Purity Spring Resort as their lodging while enjoying other places within the Mount Washington Valley.

Being a four-season resort means King Pine is able to retain employees throughout the year, helping it avoid employee shortages that have plagued resorts that put more emphasis on seasonal workers.

Location helps Pats Peak, as the Henniker ski area is about 20 minutes from Concord, 40 minutes from Manchester and 90 minutes from Boston. That makes it a solid option for a day trip or to ski under the lights (22 of its 28 trails are available for night skiing) after school or work. Pats boasts 100 percent snowmaking, and there are nine glade areas.

The only section without lights is Cascade Basin, which opened for the 2013-14 season, bumping Pats Peak’s vertical drop up to 770 feet.

Kris Blomback, who has been with Pats Peak for the past 31 years and its general manager since 1995, explained what has made the mountain what it is today.

“It starts with our ownership structure. We’ve been owned by the same family for 60-plus years, and they never take shortcuts,” he said. “Step two, we have a great location. We’re the next ski area after Wachusett and Nashoba to Boston. Step three is we have a very robust snowmaking system, and step four is we’re smack dab in the middle of all the demographics. We have a tremendous after-school program and we teach anywhere from 6,000 to 7,000 kids a year.”

The after-school program runs in conjunction with 106 school districts in the area and, according to Blomback, the number of students in those programs is returning to pre-pandemic levels. Fourteen trails are rated as beginner terrain, including three separate beginner areas with their own lifts.

New this year at Pats Peak, which opened for the 2022-23 season on Dec. 2, are additional energy-efficient fan guns on the Puff trail, a new mountain operations building, an expanded rental shop, and a patio at the base of the mountain that will have igloos with heaters. 

While those types of improvements might not look flashy on a brochure, a little every year, without borrowing heavily, has helped the Patenaudes — it was originally four brothers and, over time, became Wayne and his wife Sally in charge — keep the doors open to skiers and riders. This, while other local ski areas like Temple, Highlands and King Ridge were shuttered for good. Ragged Mountain, Whaleback and Crotched Mountain all also had to close at some point because of bankruptcy.

“I think unrealistic expectations are placed on some of these ski area business models in terms of what they can service for debt. It doesn’t take too much of a bad ski season to get the thing out of whack, and then all of a sudden you’re playing catch up,” Blomback said. “Our owner has a philosophy that he’d rather just know that, when he puts his head on his pillow at night, knowing that he owns everything. We are very hesitant to borrow money, and that allows us to kick into what I call ‘hedgehog mode’ if we do experience a really bad ski season — the staff is going to stay secure, we may not buy as much equipment the following year — but we’re not going anywhere.”

The Indy Pass has proven to be a boon for Pats Peak, to the point where it now requires a reservation system for its use. New this year, King Pine is an “allied resort” for Indy Pass, meaning current Indy Pass holders can get discounts (50 percent off midweek and non-peak weekend lift ticket prices, 25 percent off holidays and peak weekends from Dec. 24-March 12), while King Pine season-ticket holders can purchase an AddOn Pass.

Both mountains will be celebrating their anniversaries with King Pine offering a vintage ski day on Jan. 7, and a birthday party on March 12. Pats Peak will have a celebration, also on Jan. 7, that will include throwback pricing, a 60-foot long cake (10 feet longer than the party for its 50th was), and fireworks.

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