NORWAY – David Evans Langlois died on Dec. 30, 2025, at the age of 88. He was born on Sept. 12, 1937, to Alfred Langlois and Ruth Evans of Newburyport, Mass.
Dave studied and played Ice Hockey at Mount Herman Preparatory School, RPI, and UNH. His varied interests made it hard to commit to a major, and he tried engineering, physics, geology, and philosophy before finally settling on English. His professional life was just as varied, and included chapters in carpentry, coaching, trip-leading, donkey-wrangling, sign-making, camp directing, boat piloting, writing, ski instructing, marketing, data-processing, and programming.
Through his formative experiences at Camp Lawrence on Lake Winnipesaukee and in the White Mountains with the NH Outing Club and Appalachian Mountain Club, Dave discovered his love for outdoor adventures—backpacking, skiing, and piloting various types of boats—and he spent his life giving others access to these pursuits. He founded the Killington Adventure Trail Camp in 1972, introducing hundreds of young people to wilderness travel in the Green Mountains, White Mountains, and Adirondacks. He was an early pioneer in the leave-no-trace ethic, and he believed deeply in challenging young people to discover what they were capable of. His own capabilities may have sometimes led him to set the bar a bit high. He was virtually indestructible, holding for years the record for the fastest hike from Pinkham Notch to the summit of Mt. Washington: an hour and 18 minutes.
During these years he raised two daughters with his second wife, Mary Sayward, imbuing them with his love of the out-of-doors and stubborn demeanor. He later credited his experience wrangling donkeys for preparing him to manage teenagers.
Dave’s early years in Tuckerman Ravine led to decades in the ski industry, doing everything from teaching skiing in Jackson Hole to using radio-signal bugging devices to break up a ring of ski thieves in Killington, Vt. While at Killington, Dave developed one of the earliest computerized ticketing and resort management systems, a product he later installed at ski areas across the country, contributing to the shift to data-driven operations. In the late ’80s, he moved from Vermont to Maine to work as controller for Sunday River and later as director for internal controls at American Ski Company, where his nametag read “Dave Langlois, Anal Retentive Bean Counter.”
In the late ’90s, he joined the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club, leading numerous hiking, paddling, and camping trips and welcoming friends into his home in Newry for post-skiing potlucks. He met his wife of 20 years, Beth Coombs, on a MOAC hike. They were married in 2005 on her parents’ lawn in Boothbay Harbor, and she was by his side when he passed.
In his last decade, as his Alzheimer’s progressed, Dave enjoyed sitting on the deck of the home he and Beth shared, admiring the yard. He loved the animals, plants, and insects living there, and increasingly could not be convinced that mice weren’t excellent housemates or that bittersweet wasn’t the most lovely of perennials. And though he held only tender feelings for the spider living in the bathtub, he would fight you to the death over which knot was the proper one for tying a canoe onto a truck.
He is survived by his wife, Beth Coombs; daughters Suzanne and Samantha (both of whom worked for the AMC), son-in-law, Chris, stepchildren Tricia and Jonathan; grandchildren Zoe and Hazel, step-grandchildren Erin, Johnny, and Dustin; step-great-grandchildren Abel and Liam; and beloved pets Gunny and Bayou.
He was pre-deceased by his brother, John.
A celebration of life will be planned for when warmer weather returns.
For some additional memories of Dave, please see this post from his daughter Zanne, shortly after he passed away.
