Winter is Coming: 2026 - 2027 Opening Dates

The announcement of opening dates signifies that summer is nearing it's end and the cold weather that we all know and love is officially on its way. 

Vail Resorts kicked things off on August 18th with their opening date lineup, and a decent chunk of the industry has followed. 

So we did what we do and pulled every announced date we could find into one place.

Fair warning before we start. Every single one of these dates is tentative. Resorts announce them in August knowing full well that Mother Nature has never once read a press release.

But it's still useful to know where to put an X on the calendar.

The race to open is back on

Last season, Arapahoe Basin announced it was opening Sunday, October 26th.

Keystone opened Saturday, October 25th. With a 3-to-6 p.m. session. Roughly a day after A-Basin's announcement.

It was a genuinely petty move and I loved every second of it.

This year, Vail's press release says Keystone plans to open "as soon as possible in October" and openly states it wants the title of first in North America two years running. 

A-Basin, Loveland, and Winter Park are all in their usual "as soon as conditions allow" posture. Wolf Creek, which has beaten everybody four times since 2011 on natural snow alone, hasn't said a word.

If you have any flexibility in late October, keep an eye on this. Opening day at a small mountain on two runs of manmade snow is one of the more fun days you can have on skis, and nobody is there.

Below is every opening date announced so far for the 2026–27 season.

Announced

Projected (no confirmed date yet)

A few notes on what's missing.

The Northeast is quiet, which is normal. New England resorts typically hold their announcements until September or October because their opening dates depend almost entirely on snowmaking windows rather than natural snow. Killington and Sunday River both opened November 12th last year off the back of a cold snap that showed up on short notice.

If you're a Vermont or Maine skier, you're not being ignored.

You just live somewhere where the answer is a lot less predictable.

Vail also said additional resort dates are coming in the following months, which means Stowe, Okemo, Mount Snow, Hunter, and the whole Mid-Atlantic and Midwest portfolio are still pending.

As for the rest of it, the spread is about what you'd expect. Colorado front-loads the calendar, Utah and Tahoe cluster around Thanksgiving, and the Pacific Northwest brings up the rear in early December.

My advice, for whatever it's worth: if you're booking one big trip this year, the forecast is nudging you toward California and the southern Rockies. If you're booking three or four, spread them out and stop trying to outsmart the weather. Nobody wins that game.

And if you're the type to take a Tuesday off in late October to ski two runs of manmade snow with 400 other lunatics, I'll see you there.

See you out there.

-Shai