NH Maple Experience

New Hampshire Maple Experience tours have ended for the season. Missed your chance to experience the fun? You can take a private tour year-round.

 

About the New Hampshire Maple Experience:

A child helps with tapping a maple tree.
A young helper assists farmer Nigel Manley with tapping a maple tree at The Rocks. (Photo: Shanna Hale)

Maple sugaring has been a sweet tradition for centuries in New Hampshire, where smoke rising from sugar houses tucked into the woods signals the welcome arrival of spring. As the days warm, sap begins to flow through sugar maple trees, ready to be collected and crafted into sweet maple syrup, sugar, and candy.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience at The Rocks explores this maple tradition, from the techniques used by indigenous peoples and early European settlers of the region to the operations of the modern sugar maker.

Visitors will learn how to identify and tap a sugar maple tree, enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride through the historic estate, and take a tractor ride to talk with a fourth-generation sugar maker as he plies his trade in the sweet-scented steam of a working sugar house. Next door to the sugarhouse, the interactive New Hampshire Maple Museum displays maple sugaring tools, from historic to modern.

Of course, no Maple Experience would be complete without sampling the finished product. We pair our own maple syrup with fresh cider donuts and a sour pickle – to offset the sweetness of the syrup – for a unique tasting experience.

A person puts their hand up to a maple tree to taste the sap flowing.

A visitor tastes fresh sap from a maple tree. (Photo: Shanna Hale)

Visitors sit on hay bales during a tractor ride to the Maple Museum.

Families take a tractor ride to the NH Maple Museum and sugarhouse. (Photo: Shanna Hale)

A farmer points to where he will tap a maple tree for the sap.

Nigel Manley gets ready to tap a maple tree at The Rocks. (Photo: Colleen Eliason, White Mountains Attractions Association)

A horse-drawn wagon takes visitors past sugar maple trees with metal buckets gathering sap.

Visitors take a wagon ride to look at the sap lines at the farm.

A visitor sticks out their tongue to taste fresh sap.

Taste fresh sap from a maple tree after you help tap it! (Photo: Shanna Hale)

A couple poses together during the tractor ride.

Take home a taste of The Rocks from the gift shop! 

Visitors gather outside the maple museum.

Part of the tour includes a stop at the NH Maple Museum, which displays maple sugaring tools, from historic to modern.

Brad Presby shows the different colors of syrup to visitors.

Fourth-generation sugar maker Brad Presby plies his trade in the sweet-scented steam of a working sugar house.