Gunstock's Zipline Still Runs on Weekends While Three of Its Lifts Get Rebuilt Underneath It

Gunstock Mountain Resort President and General Manager Robert Drake is quoted by Lakes Region as saying, "We're a hot spot for summer camping and adventure too."

Many people still file the mountain under "closes after ski season." If you live in Gilford and drive Cherry Valley Road with any regularity, you already know that's not quite right. What you may not know is how much is actually happening up there right now, in the exact weeks between Labor Day and the first real snow.

Two things are true on that mountain at the same time this fall. The Adventure Park is still open, the campground still has sites booked, and the mountain coaster is still running on weekends. At the same moment, crews are mid-way through a multi-million dollar rebuild of three separate lift systems that won't matter to a single rider until December. Gunstock isn't winding down for the year. It's doing its heaviest capital work during the same stretch it's still collecting weekend gate money.

The Calendar Runs Longer Than Labor Day

The easy assumption is that once school starts back up, Gunstock quiets down until the first snowmaking guns fire in November. The actual schedule doesn't support that.

The Adventure Park, Gunstock's warm-weather draw built around a mountain coaster, zipline tours, and an eight-course aerial treetop challenge network, ran daily through the end of August and then shifted to a weekends-only schedule that continues through November 1. That means the zipline network, which covers 1.6 miles and includes a guided 90-minute ZipTour where riders can reach speeds up to 70 miles per hour, is still booking Saturdays and Sundays deep into foliage season. So is the Aerial Treetop Adventure course, with its 81 features spread across eight difficulty levels, plus a separate Explorer Course scaled for kids six to eleven.

The 262-site campground at the base of the mountain runs daily through October 18, which puts the last full week of camping right in the heart of peak leaf-peeping season. And later in the summer season, once the Adventure Park schedule allowed for it, Gunstock added scenic rides on its Panorama chairlift, the same lift that carries skiers to the summit in winter, giving non-skiers a look at Lake Winnipesaukee and the White Mountains without touching a trail.

None of that reads like a mountain in hibernation.

What's Actually Happening on the Lift Line

Here's the part that doesn't show up on the Adventure Park schedule. While gates are still open on weekends, Gunstock is in the middle of rebuilding the mechanical guts of three chairlifts, all at once.

Work on the Panorama lift, the high-speed detachable quad that handles both winter summit access and those new summer scenic rides, began right after the resort's spring closing day on April 4. The scope isn't cosmetic. Panorama is getting a new drive system, a new chair-spacing system, and an entirely new control system, along with new lift structures at both the base and the summit to house that upgraded control equipment.

Two other lifts are getting attention in the same window. The Tiger chair is getting a new haul rope, the cable the chair itself rides on. The Pistol chair is getting new grips, the mechanism that clamps each chair to the haul rope, along with the completion of a full gearbox rebuild.

Underground, the snowmaking system is being reworked just as thoroughly. Crews are installing 5,000 feet of new pipe and physically isolating the lower and upper mountain snowmaking systems from each other, a change that lets each half of the mountain make snow independently instead of sharing capacity.

If you've noticed equipment staged near the base lodge or work vehicles parked along access roads that don't match the summer recreation traffic, this is why.

Why the Money Lands in One Offseason

This isn't a routine maintenance budget. In 2025, Gunstock announced a two-year, roughly $9 million reinvestment plan, one of the larger capital commitments the resort has made in recent memory. Of that total, $4.5 million is being spent in this single offseason: about $1.4 million into the snowmaking overhaul, close to $2 million into the three-lift rebuild, and roughly $1.1 million into general equipment and facility upgrades.

That much work is taking place within one nine-month window between closing day and opening day. Lift components like haul ropes and gearboxes are the kind of infrastructure that's invisible when it works and season-ending when it doesn't. The Panorama, Tiger, and Pistol work is happening in the same offseason, rather than being spread across separate years.

For anyone who's watched Gunstock's slower stretches before, this is a different posture. Gunstock is investing in less visible infrastructure while the coaster, the zipline, and the chairlift views continue generating revenue on weekends.

What This Looks Like From the Road

If you're driving Cherry Valley Road this October, expect both things to be visible depending on which direction you're looking. Toward the base area on a Saturday, you'll likely see cars parked for the Adventure Park, families headed toward the zipline check-in, maybe a scenic chairlift line if the leaves are peaking. Toward the lift towers themselves, especially near Tiger and Pistol, you may see contractor equipment and crews working on chair grips or haul rope tensioning that has nothing to do with the weekend's paying guests.

That overlap is worth knowing if you're planning a fall visit with out-of-town guests. The Adventure Park and scenic chairlift rides are open and unaffected by the lift construction happening on the systems not currently in public use. The campground is open through October 18 with normal daily operations. None of the capital work has closed public-facing amenities.

It's also worth knowing if you're the kind of person who pays attention to what the $9 million reinvestment plan says about a place. Gunstock is rebuilding three chairlift systems and reworking its snowmaking system this year.

Gilford residents who've watched Gunstock through quieter stretches in the past are watching something different unfold this fall: a mountain running its warm-weather business and rebuilding its winter business in the same nine months, in full view of anyone driving by.

If you're weighing what it means to live near a mountain that's reinvesting like this, or you're curious what a place like Gilford actually offers day to day beyond the trailheads and the lake, Martha Trepanier knows this stretch of the Lakes Region well enough to talk through it, no pressure, just a conversation about the area.