By Chris Ryan
Bartlett, NH- This summer we are highlighting the best spots in the Granite State for economical family fun. When you think Attitash Mountain, skiing is probably the first thing to come to mind, but you’ll likely enjoy it even more in the summer months as our “Best Family Adventure Day Trip.”
This place just provides non-stop family fun for the entire family, which is tough to find.
The mountain coaster is NH’S best as you zip in and out of the trees while going as fast as you can handle or as slow as you want. Other mountain coasters have left the boys and I wanting more speed, but this one pushed us to the edge as we went full throttle.
The grand daddy of summer mountain fun is the alpine slide, which is celebrating it’s 40th birthday this summer. You ascend upon a chair lift, pick up your sled and make your way to a luge-style track. Again, you control your speed and this time you want to. The track has numerous curves and you head off side by side with another competitor, ah, I mean, sledder. Racing is discouraged, as you can lose control, but that didn’t stop an epic side by side battle between my six-year-old Liam on one track with my three-year-old Brennan and I on the other. Liam claims to have won, however, Brennan and I know better.
You will also find four different water slides, one is a tube one (I recommend going backwards) and three slides where you’re seated on a mat. All of them are epic. You can also ride horses and jump out of the equivalent of what appeared to be a four story building into a large blow up.
However, I recommend the Zip-Tour most of all. When it was built in 2014 it was the longest zip-line in the continental USA, since then it’s become the second longest. The thrill and beauty are amazing! The Bear Peak line extends 4,969 feet while you fly 250′ feet over the tree line at a top speed of roughly 55 MPH.
The stats are nice, but the feeling of stepping onto the platform and barely being able to identify your landing platform on Attitash Mountain is breathtaking. Then you start to follow the line and it disappears from view about halfway out (check out the picture above).
The most fearful part of zip-lining to me is the initial step off the platform and placing trust into the equipment, once it holds, it’s all fun from there. The scenery on this line is amazing. You quickly identify Mt. Washington to your north, and then can notice several other in the Presidential Range.
The second line on Attitash Mountain is where you can hit speeds in excess of 65 MPH as this line shoots straight down to the base lodge area. Side by side racing is fun, but you do need to control your speed at the end as you get close to the platform.
