Mammoth Mountain Teases Opening Day for Upcoming Season
What are you doing right now? Mowing your lawn? Drinking some iced tea? Getting your tan on?
Well, dear reader, we are here to inform you that Mammoth Mountain, California, has announced its intended opening day for the 2026-27 season: like previous winters, the ski resort is shooting for November; Friday, November 13, 2026, to be exact, according to a resort spokesperson.
Such announcements have become something of a summer hype-cycle tradition. Last year, Mammoth Mountain broke the news in August. A few weeks later, Vail Resorts debuted a slew of opening dates for its ski areas.
We’ll admit it and you might be thinking it: it’s a bit silly to be talking about snow and chairlifts this time of year. On the flip side, we don’t mind knowing where to put a big red X on the calendar accompanied by the message “SKIING.” That way, you can start counting down the days. If we’ve run the numbers correctly, Mammoth skiers are now looking at a 113-day wait as of July 23, 2026.
Well, something like that. Opening dates at any ski resort are always contingent on weather.
Mammoth Mountain/Cody Mathison
Dealing with uncooperative conditions, Mammoth pushed its opening back to November 20, 2025, last winter, alongside several other western resorts, like Brian Head and Solitude in Utah, that also struggled with delays. Historically, though, the mountain has consistently landed somewhere in the early to mid-November window, according to dates gathered by the Mammoth Snowman.
For Mammoth, the tail end of last winter proved more fruitful. Yes, as every skier knows, the 2025-26 season was, for the most part, memorable for all the wrong reasons in the West. But Mammoth still picked up decent snowfall (and actually outpaced the 2024-25 season by a few inches) and managed to keep the party going until June 7.
If Mammoth hits November 13, it’ll likely be one of the first ski resorts open in North America. Another bunch tends to open around Thanksgiving, while a select few in Colorado regularly jostle for the coveted title of North America’s first chair. Keystone took those honors in 2025 when it opened on October 25.
In the meantime, Mammoth is in summer mode, with activities like golf, biking, and hiking on tap—all suitable diversions if you’re looking for something else to do other than staring at the calendar waiting for winter to start. The latter’s pretty fun in a pinch, though.
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