Staying Near Gunstock Mountain: The Best Home Base in Gilford, NH

Gunstock Mountain Resort sits on Cherry Valley Road in Gilford, New Hampshire, on the southern shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, close enough to the water that a ski day and a lake view fit into the same afternoon. It’s a town-owned resort, not a corporate one, which shows up in small ways: it’s unpretentious, family-run in spirit, and genuinely a four-season operation rather than a ski hill that closes for the summer.

What you’re actually getting on the mountain

In winter, Gunstock has 227 skiable acres across 49 trails, with lighted night skiing that extends the day well past sunset. Beyond downhill skiing and riding, the resort runs a full winter program: snow tubing, snowshoeing, Nordic skiing, and skijoring (cross-country skiing pulled by your own dog, if you’re set up for it). It’s a legitimate option for a family that has one strong skier, one beginner, and one person who’d rather snowshoe: the trail mix and the tubing park make that split easy to manage without anyone standing around bored.

What surprises a lot of first-time visitors is that Gunstock doesn’t go quiet in the off-season. The summer Adventure Park runs zipline tours, an aerial treetop ropes course, a mountain coaster, and chairlift rides up to the summit for the view alone. If you’re building a Lakes Region trip around anything other than skiing (a summer week, a shoulder-season weekend), it’s worth knowing Gunstock is still worth the drive.

For trail runners and mountain bikers, the resort also maintains about 50 kilometers of singletrack and doubletrack, running from easy terrain near the campground up to genuinely advanced riding along the ridge toward Mount Rowe.

Choosing a home base

Gunstock itself has on-mountain lodging and a campground, which is the simplest option if you want to walk to the lifts. But most of what makes a Lakes Region trip good (the lake towns, the restaurants, the other things on this list) happens off the mountain, and Gilford sits close enough to Laconia, Weirs Beach, and the western shore of Lake Winnipesaukee that basing yourself a short drive away rarely costs you much time.

The honest answer is that where you should stay depends on what else is on your itinerary. If Gunstock is genuinely the center of the trip, staying close to Gilford makes sense. If you’re splitting time between the mountain and the lake (which is a strong combination Gunstock’s own summer side makes possible), a stay elsewhere in the Lakes Region with an easy drive to Cherry Valley Road works just as well.