Drive up Belknap Mountain Road on a Saturday morning in early October and you'll pass three different kinds of traffic. Trucks pulling boats toward Lake Winnipesaukee, thinning out now that summer's over. Cars turning into Beans & Greens Farm on Intervale Road for cider donuts and a stroll through the corn maze. And a steady trickle of vehicles climbing toward Gunstock Mountain Resort, where the Panorama chairlift is still running scenic rides to the summit on weekends, same as it has since May.
Most people who don't live here assume Gilford shuts down once the leaf-peepers clear out and the boats come off the water. That's not quite right, and the mistake is worth correcting because the town's three biggest outdoor draws, the mountain, the farm, and the hiking trails that connect them, don't close on the same schedule. Some have hard dates already on the calendar. One never closes at all.
The Mountain Runs on Two Different Clocks
Gunstock's 262-site campground wraps up for the season on October 18, 2026. Its Adventure Park, the mountain coaster, zipline tours, Aerial Treetop Adventure, and those scenic chairlift rides, keeps going on weekends through November 1. That's a two-week gap between when you can still pitch a tent at the base of the mountain and when the last chairlift of the season carries someone to the summit.
Gunstock's own president and general manager, Robert Drake, said it plainly when the resort announced this year's summer and fall lineup: "People who are only familiar with Gunstock as a destination for winter sports are often surprised to discover we're a hot spot for summer camping and adventure too." The surprise, based on the calendar, extends into fall as well. A place most people mentally file under "ski mountain" is still selling zipline tickets in the same week New Hampshire starts talking about snow in the forecast.
What's Actually Still Running Up There
The specifics matter if you're planning a weekend around this. Gunstock's Adventure Park includes the mountain coaster, a series of ziplines totaling 1.6 miles from summit to base, the Aerial Treetop Adventure with eight ropes courses and 81 challenge features, and the Panorama chairlift, which carries visitors to the summit for views that on a clear day reach Lake Winnipesaukee, the Ossipee Range, and Mount Washington. All of it runs Saturdays and Sundays only from here through November 1.
The trails that lace the Belknap Range around the resort are a separate matter entirely, and they're open long after the lifts stop turning for the season. Dogs are welcome on Gunstock's hiking and biking trails, leashed, same as they are throughout the surrounding state forest.
Down the Hill, Beans & Greens Runs on Its Own Calendar
A ten-minute drive from the base of the mountain, Beans & Greens Farm on Intervale Road is working through its own fall lineup, on its own timeline. The farm, run by Andy and Martina Howe since 1989, sits on land that's been farmed since the 1700s. The barn that now houses the farm store was built in 1878 and got its historic designation in 1999, the same year the Howes rebuilt it with a timber-frame addition for the bakery and deli that are there now.
Fall at Beans & Greens means the corn maze, open daily, with night mazes running Friday and Saturday evenings. It means pick-your-own pumpkins, mums, winter squash, and the cider donuts that show up in nearly every review of the place. It also means Fear Farm, the haunted version of the same fields, running Friday and Saturday nights through October. Unlike Gunstock's posted closing dates, the farm doesn't publish a hard end date for the corn maze itself. The operators have said they'll keep the maze updated as the corn grows, which is a farmer's way of saying the season ends when the season ends, not on a date printed in April.
The One Thing on the Mountain That Never Closes
Between the resort with its November 1 cutoff and the farm with its informal one sits the actual mountain, and the hiking trail up it doesn't observe either calendar.
Belknap Mountain, the highest peak in its namesake range at 2,383 feet, has a trailhead at the end of Carriage Road that's open whenever the road itself isn't gated for mud season or winter. The hike to the summit and its 34-foot fire tower, one of sixteen active fire towers still staffed in New Hampshire, runs about 2.2 miles as an easy loop or up to 4.8 miles if you connect toward Piper Mountain and the secluded Round Pond along the way. Trail conditions are considered good from April through November, according to AllTrails, with fall singled out as the season people specifically go for the foliage views from the summit ledges.
That's a six-month window with no scheduled closing at all, running well past the date the campground packs up and past the date the chairlift stops for the season. If the mountain view is what you're after, the fire tower doesn't care whether the resort below it is between seasons.
Where to Eat Before or After
None of this requires driving far for food afterward. The Breeze, at the old Lyons Den location on Dock Road, has built a following on seafood and a barn-board dining room. Ellacoya Barn and Grille, run by the same owner, sits close enough to be a second stop on the same afternoon. Patrick's Pub & Eatery on Weirs Road has been a fixture for live music and a full bar menu for years. The Gilford Village Store covers the simpler end of things, a sandwich or coffee on the way up or down the mountain.
For something newer, Frida Mexican Bar and Grill opened a second location this past May on Route 11 between Alton Bay and Gilford, giving the corridor between the two towns another sit-down option that wasn't there a year ago.
What This Means for the Next Five Weekends
If you're trying to fit everything in before the season fully turns, the order that makes sense based on what's actually still open looks something like this:
- Now through October 18: the full stack is available, campground included, if you want to make a weekend of it rather than a day trip
- October 18 through November 1: the campground is closed but the Adventure Park, chairlift, zipline, and coaster are still running weekends
- Through late October: Beans & Greens is at its fullest, corn maze by day, Fear Farm on Friday and Saturday nights
- Anytime the road isn't gated, April through November by most accounts: the Belknap Mountain fire tower hike is there, foliage season included, no ticket window required
The mountain, the farm, and the trail aren't operating off the same sheet of paper, and treating them like they are is how people end up driving to Gunstock in November expecting a campsite that's already been closed for weeks.
Whether you're planning next weekend or you're the kind of person who tracks these seasonal rhythms because you're already thinking about what year-round life here actually looks like, Mulligan Property Group knows this stretch of the Lakes Region well enough to talk through the parts that don't make it into a tourism brochure.
