Mammoth Mountain opens 5 November: 8 days early and first on the West Coast

Skiers below a chairlift tower at Mammoth Mountain, California. Photo: Karissa Kunihira via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Mammoth Mountain starts its 2026-27 season on Thursday 5 November 2026, eight days before the Friday 13 November it announced in July. The reason is more than a foot of snow in the last week of October and cold nights for the snow guns, according to the Ikon Pass release of Tuesday 3 November. Two lifts and three trails open at 8:30 a.m. The move puts the Eastern Sierra resort one day ahead of Mt. Rose and makes it the first ski area to open on the West Coast.

• Opening day is Thursday 5 November 2026, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the original date was Friday 13 November.
• Open on day one: Broadway Express (Chair 1) and the Lower Panorama Gondola, with the trails Broadway, Silver Tip and Rusty's.
• No beginner terrain and no beginner lessons at the opening; rentals at Main Lodge.
• The weekend storm of 31 October to 1 November left about 9 inches (23 cm) at Main Lodge and about 15 inches (38 cm) higher up, the local site Mammoth Snowman reports.
• Mt. Rose near Reno follows on Friday 6 November; Mammoth's last four openings fell between 5 and 20 November.

The resort's own opening-day page lists what runs on 5 November. Lifts are scheduled to open at 8:30 a.m. with access to three trails: Broadway, Silver Tip and Rusty's. Broadway Express, known as Chair 1, and the Lower Panorama Gondola are expected to operate. More terrain opens as conditions allow.

Beginner terrain and beginner lessons are not available at the opening. Private lessons run for intermediate and advanced skiers only, booked in person at Main Lodge, where the rental shop is open.

The Ikon Pass release of 3 November gives the reason in one sentence: Mammoth's original scheduled opening day was Friday 13 November, but thanks to over a foot of fresh snow in the past week and favourable snowmaking temperatures, Mammoth opens with its Lower Panorama Gondola and Broadway Express. That is eight days earlier than planned.

The storm numbers come from Mammoth Snowman, a local conditions site that works with permission of the resort. Overnight from Saturday 31 October to Sunday 1 November the mountain picked up 9 inches of new snow around Main Lodge, recorded at the 9,000-foot level, from 1.09 inches of precipitation. That is a snow ratio of about 9:1: dense snow that builds a base. Ski patrol reported about 15 inches on the upper mountain.

Active NorCal puts the weekend total at 9 to 15 inches on the upper mountain and the season total so far at roughly 12 to 20 inches. The resort's communications director told the site that the storm and the cold nights for the snow guns together made the earlier date possible. SnowBrains notes that the summit reaches 11,053 feet (3,369 m) and that the resort lies about 310 miles (500 km) north of Los Angeles.

Mammoth normally schedules its opening for the Friday of the Veterans Day weekend in mid-November. The last five seasons show how much the start moves with the weather.

Last winter the start slipped by nearly a week, from a planned 14 November to 20 November, after a dry autumn. Even so, Mammoth recorded 297 inches (754 cm) of snow in 2025-26, 11 inches more than in 2024-25, according to the SnowBrains season recap of 23 July. The record stays with 2022-23 and its 715 inches (1,816 cm). This November starts with a thicker base than last November, when the resort counted 24 inches for the whole month.

Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe above Reno, Nevada, opens its Lakeview chair on Friday 6 November at 9 a.m., its website says as of 4 November. Mt. Rose has a base at 8,260 feet. Until Monday 3 November it was set to be the first West Coast area of the season; Mammoth now leads by one day. Men's Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle reported the change on the same day.

On the Ikon Pass, Mammoth is the fourth destination open this winter. Arapahoe Basin in Colorado opened on 28 October, Lake Louise in Canada on 1 November, and Zermatt in Switzerland has run its glacier lifts since mid-October. The pass's own opening calendar of 17 September lists the next steps: Copper Mountain on 6 November, Sunday River on 15 November, Alta and Solitude on 20 November, Steamboat on 21 November and Palisades Tahoe on 25 November. June Mountain, Mammoth's sister area, waits until 19 December.

Opening day at Mammoth means three groomed trails on dense natural and machine-made snow, firm in the morning and softer by noon. Powder skis stay in the car. A ski of 84 to 88 mm under foot with a radius around 16 to 18 m carries the edge on the firm groomers and still copes with the heavier snow at the sides of the trail.

In our catalog that is the territory of the Blizzard Anomaly 84, the Dynastar M-Pro 85, the Atomic Maverick 86 C and the Elan Ripstick 88. Our top-5 all-mountain skis list ranks the wider options for later in the season. The Pick-a-Ski tool matches a ski to your level and the snow you expect.

• Alterra Mountain Company / Ikon Pass, "Mammoth Mountain Opens Early", Business Wire, 3 November 2026
• Mammoth Mountain, "26/27 Opening Day" event page and homepage, read 4 November 2026
• Alterra Mountain Company, "Ikon Pass Announces Opening Dates for Winter 26/27", 17 September 2026
• Mammoth Snowman, conditions report of 2 November 2026 and opening-date history, read 4 November 2026
• SnowBrains, 3 November 2026 and 23 July 2026
• Active NorCal, 3 November 2026
• Men's Journal and San Francisco Chronicle, 3 November 2026
• Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe, website, read 4 November 2026