North Carolina Kicks Off Ski Season Before Utah
Sugar Mountain, North Carolina, is giving some better-known ski states a run for their money.
The small ski area opened today, November 11, 2025, at 9 a.m. with plans to keep its lifts operating until 4:30 p.m. Sugar Mountain opened the Summit Express chairlift and the Magic Carpet with access to five trails: Northridge, Switchback, Upper, Lower Flying Mile, and the Magic Carpet area.
It marks the ski area’s earliest opening since 2019, when Sugar Mountain started the season on November 9. Sugar Mountain also isn’t the only place you can ski in North Carolina this week. Cataloochee is set to kick the season off a day later on Wednesday, November 12.
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Cataloochee Ski Area
In the Northeast, a similarly encouraging story is unfolding. Killington, Vermont, is scheduled to open on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, with what it’s calling “most opening day terrain in recent history.” The resort added in its conditions report that top-to-bottom skiing could be available later this week.
Sunday River, Maine, meanwhile, recently shared footage of its snowguns hard at work, writing on social media, “Stay tuned for more updates…”
The openings give North Carolina and the East a perhaps surprising edge over Utah, where warm weather has caused ski resort delays. Brian Head, Utah, initially planned to open on November 7. Now, it’s aiming for November 21. Solitude Mountain, another Utah ski resort, just pushed its opening date back to November 16 from November 14.
In basins around Salt Lake City, snow water equivalents are hovering between 7% and 39% of the median, according to mapping data published by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
In another illustration of the East-West divide, meteorologist Chris Tomer, in his latest mountain weather forecast, noted that Tampa, Florida, was colder than Denver, Colorado, this morning.
It’s still early November, though, and a storm that’s set to impact the West is brewing. Our friends at Powderchasers are tracking snowfall through November 17, with feet possible across California and the Pacific Northwest. Additional inches are possible in other western states.
Pray for snow!
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