King Pine Ski Area’s Diamond Jubilee

PHOTO: Happy 60th Birthday King Pine! A skier on the ski area’s namesake trail, King Pine Trail. Sixty years ago the ski area started with a double chair and three trails. Today it boasts 17 trails and six lifts–including three triple-chairlifts. King Pine has terrain for all ages and abilities. The family-owned and operated traditions continue, King Pine’s general manager Andrew Mahoney is the grandson of the ski area’s founder the late Milt Hoyt. The family friendly resort has night skiing and also snow tubing, ice skating, uphill access and cross-country skiing & snowshoe trails.

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

Happy 60th Birthday King Pine!

According to “A History of King Pine Ski Area” by Tom Eastman, a sweet little 11 page history book available at guest services, opening day was on Saturday December 29, 1962. On that day a new double chair carried skiers to three new trails cut through the pines on the hillside.

King Pine in Madison, NH is located south of Conway and north of Freedom right on NH Route 153.

The ski area was founded by the late Milt Hoyt. Hoyt expanded the family resort big time into the ski business. The Hoyt family also owns the adjacent Purity Springs Resort. His children and grandchildren have continued the legacy of their family-owned and operated Purity Springs Resort and the King Pine Ski Area. Truly a fine place for families and people of all ages to have great fun.

Since that day the small ski area has developed to offer everything that the big resorts have to offer except one thing. The ski area isn’t too tall, it is just right, with 350 vertical feet from top to bottom. Skiing with snowmaking, night skiing, snowtubing, ski school, ski club, snowshoeing, ice skating, uphill ski-skinning and cross country skiing are all offered at King Pine.

I met a friend to ski King Pine and she told me to wear something vintage for the celebration. I pulled out of my closet a long mink coat my mother had given me that she found many years ago in a thrift store. It is warm and I like the movie star-hunter-trapper look!

I booted up at my car, picked up my lift ticket and met my friend at the lift. It was a nice day to ski, not too cold and the sun poked out now and then. I was impressed with their snowmaking. Nearly 60 percent of the trails were open and covered with snow edge to edge. There was natural snow, everything was pretty white but not quite enough yet to open all 17 of their trails.
Hopefully soon Mother Nature will help us out!

The lift line was only a minute or two and we skied every trail. All the trails are named after Pines. I recall on a previous visit my husband Charlie loved the gentle Slow Pokey Pine Trail. Pitch Pine is one of the steepest trails in the State but its rope hasn’t dropped yet. Blue square rated King Pine and Pine Cone Trails skied really nicely on soft snow. From their slopes there were nice views of the frosted white mountains high above the snow covered Purity Lake.

I enjoyed the chairlift rides too. We had a nice time visiting and chatting between runs.
I noticed a lot of small children skiing with their parents and many kids were taking ski lessons. There is a little rope tow, the Cubby Tow and we went over and joined the children grabbing the rope for a short ride up. A rope tow makes strong arms. There were happy faces everywhere. Across the way there is a carpet lift for novices.

My friend wore a lovely Norwegian sweater. We met a group dressed in vintage day-glow 80’s ski garb. I was impressed by another’s CB Sport bright red one-piece suit. Wool, lots of wool, it is still in style but matched with a wool cap it certainly is vintage.

In the lodge, we picked up lunch in the Pine Cone Café. We each had a bowl of the ultimate comfort food–cheeseburger soup and we split a yummy hot and gooey grilled cheese sandwich. Especially compared to the big resorts the prices seemed quite reasonable. I especially liked their homemade desserts, the oversized Rice Crispy Treat was super.

We skied more after lunch but I had to leave mid-afternoon. I was sorry to miss the end of the ski day celebration—après ski in the Trail’s End Tavern. Prizes for coolest and best vintage fashion were awarded and ski historian Tom Eastman gave a presentation on King Pine’s history.

In the morning when I started the ski tracker on my smart watch. I remembered to look at it when I got back to my car and it recorded 19 runs. That’s a lot of skiing.

Have Fun.