This afternoon at 2 p.m., vendors in the Abenaki Ski Lodge on Pine Hill Road will open the indoor Wolfeboro Area Farmers Market. Thursday is market day at the lodge until December 17, with the Thanksgiving week off. The tow isn't running and the trails are still bare, but the hill already has a full calendar.
That calendar is the best way to understand Abenaki in November. The Town of Wolfeboro calls it a "community-owned and operated" ski area. Over the past year that ownership has meant a ski operation, a youth club, a mountain bike group, the town's wastewater system and now a sewer construction project all sharing the same slope. Ski season is the part most people see. The other plans on the hill decide a good deal of how it runs.
A lodge with a longer season than the slope
The first trails at Abenaki were cut in 1936. The rope tow and the original lodge followed by 1940. Today's building is meant for more than ski days. In its 2026 rental agreement the Town calls it a "Four-Season Lodge" and lists its uses as ski operations, Parks & Recreation programs, Town meetings, nonprofit gatherings and private events.
Town business does take place there. The October 13, 2026 meeting of the Capital Improvements Program Committee, the group that ranks Wolfeboro's long-range spending, was held at the Abenaki Lodge.
The farmers market's move indoors follows the same idea. According to the Wolfeboro Area Farmers Market, the indoor season started October 15 and runs Thursdays through December 17, except Thanksgiving. The hours are 2 to 4:30 p.m., which the market calls a new time slot for 2026. Counting from today, that leaves five market Thursdays at the lodge:
- November 12
- November 19
- December 3
- December 10
- December 17
Thanksgiving falls on November 26, so there's no market that week. The outdoor market uses a different site. The market lists The Nick at 10 Trotting Track Road as its outdoor location, with an 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. window.
Passes went on sale November 1
Wolfeboro Parks & Recreation sells Abenaki season passes, sets the hours and handles tickets. The Abenaki Ski Team's site sends families to the Town for all three. Sign-ups for the 2026–27 season opened on the Town's RecDesk portal on November 1 and stay open through April 1, 2027.
2026–27 Abenaki pass | Resident | Non-resident |
|---|---|---|
Adult, ages 18–99 | $100 | $200 |
Youth, 17 and under | $75 | $150 |
Senior, 55 and over | $75 | $150 |
Family | $275 | $400 |
Non-residents pay twice the resident price for individual passes. The family pass is the exception: $400 against $275, a $125 difference. A non-resident household with two adults and two kids would pay $700 buying individual passes, so the family pass saves $300. For a resident household the same comparison is $350 against $275. The adult, youth, senior and family listings are all on RecDesk.
Last winter gives a sense of how the season is set up. The December 3, 2025 Select Board minutes show a planned December 20 opening for 2025–26. Public hours were 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, with daily operation planned for school vacation weeks. Mondays and Tuesdays were held for private rentals, school groups and the club. The same discussion covered snowmaking, which needs about 48 hours of good conditions before production can keep going. That's why weather sets the opening date more than the calendar does. Parks & Recreation posts this season's opening and hours.
The club behind the weekday schedule
Those reserved early-week days are part of a growing arrangement between the Town and the Abenaki Outing Club. In December 2025 the Select Board approved a memorandum of understanding with the club. Insurance, payments, schedules and staffing were left for a separate contract. Testimony at the meeting said the club's programs had grown and brought in $40,000 in revenue.
The Abenaki Ski Team registration page lists these 2026–27 programs:
- Learn to Ski, $250
- Alpine Development, $450
- Alpine racing, $675 to $925
- Freestyle, $350
- Junior Freestyle, $275
- Nordic, $325
- Race League, $65 adult and $35 child
These are club tuitions and are separate from the Town pass. A family with a child in Alpine Development pays both. The list also covers more than downhill. Nordic and freestyle both use the hill, and so does an adult race league.
What keeps the tow turning
Equipment on a town ski hill moves through the town budget, so it gets discussed in public. In late November 2025, Parks & Recreation told the Select Board that a replacement tow rope costing $4,350 had been bought with reserve funds and was being installed. The Board also heard that the department had bought a lightly used groomer in fall 2024, expected to last about 20 years, with an $8,000 yearly maintenance budget.
Nine days later, the December 3 meeting reviewed a proposed warrant article that would add $32,000 to the Abenaki Capital Reserve Fund. The fund held $66,841 as of December 31, 2025. The plan was to save toward the next groomer, which the minutes estimate for 2044. Board members also mentioned donations made toward electrifying and motorizing the tow rope. Other items on the list included evaluating the snowmaking compressors and the pump house, along with replacing overhead electric lines and an electric motor.
Seen together, the figures show the scale. A full season of groomer upkeep costs nearly twice as much as a new tow rope. The reserve balance at the end of 2025 was about twice the proposed one-year addition. The hill runs on a modest budget, and every upgrade has to compete with the rest of the capital list. That includes the $280,000 sidewalk machine reviewed at the same meeting.
Bike trails, ski glades and spray fields
Abenaki is also used in the warm months, and that use extends onto ground the ski area doesn't control. On March 18, 2026, the Select Board heard from Greater Wolfeboro NEMBA, the local mountain bike chapter, about its trail plans on the hill. According to the minutes, Parks & Recreation raised concerns about the existing shared ski and bike trails, Headwall and Freeway, and about any new trails that could affect the Glades ski terrain.
Water was the bigger issue. Part of the hill is used by Wolfeboro's wastewater system as spray fields, with a retention pond and a main feed line. The minutes record that the Town is fined if riders go onto the slopes leading into the pond. They also record a damaged culvert, which the chapter said it had given money to the cross-country group to fix. NEMBA told the Board that the previous year's trail work and collaboration had gone well, and that it would drop a proposed enduro trail if that trail caused problems.
Parks & Recreation asked that no more bike trails be built at Abenaki for now. One Board member said she supported the bike trails but wanted the spray-field area and the retention pond worked out first. She noted that a capacity study suggests moving from spraying to drip irrigation. By the July 1 meeting, the Board's work plan listed the Abenaki bike-trail punch list as in progress, with the trail walk complete and a group meeting underway.
This affects skiers too. Any change to the spray fields affects the land around the Glades. Any trail built near a ski run has to make sense in both summer and winter. The wastewater system works on its own timetable, separate from both the ski season and the riding season.
Filter Bed Road and a winter of construction
The March discussion also flagged the next project to reach the hill. The minutes say Filter Bed Road would be the staging area for the Mill Street sewer pump station work starting in fall 2026.
The Public Works Department's November 3 construction update says contractor TBuck is scheduled to start on the Mill Street Pump Station Rehabilitation Project in November 2026, with completion planned for summer 2027. Work will mostly affect the parking lot next to the pump station at 27 Mill Street. Access will be kept open, but drivers should expect minor delays and flaggers. The Town expects the contractor to keep working through the 2026–27 winter when weather permits.
That puts construction on Mill Street during one of the busiest weekends of the season downtown. The Christmas in Wolfeboro Parade is listed for Saturday, November 28, at 3 p.m. It runs from Brewster Academy North to Mill Street and ends with the lighting of the community Christmas tree. Santa visits Santa's Hut from 4 to 6 p.m. If you usually park near the pump station for the parade, plan for workers and flaggers in the work zone.
Abenaki's off-season schedule ends up tied to the town's other schedules: the market's Thursday hours, the club's season, NEMBA's work days, the wastewater plant's spray fields and a sewer contractor's staging plan. The next fixed date on that list is Thursday, November 19, when the market is back in the lodge from 2 to 4:30 p.m.
At Lake Mountain Property Group, we follow Select Board minutes and capital plans for the same reason we follow the lake, because they shape how a town runs from season to season. If you're weighing a home within reach of a town-run hill like Abenaki, start your lake property search with us, and we'll walk you through how each Lakes Region town looks after its year-round amenities.
