Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26. Mt. Baker’s published calendar flags that day as a holiday, which means the lifts are scheduled to run — but the mountain has actually been open on Thanksgiving in only three of the last six seasons, and nothing in Glacier or Maple Falls advertises a Thanksgiving dinner. Plan a trip that works either way, and bring the food.
This is the question we field most in October. Somebody has four days off, a car, and a group that has already half-decided. Here is everything we could verify today.
Will Mt. Baker Ski Area be open on Thanksgiving 2026?
Possibly. The ski area’s 2026-27 operations calendar marks November 26 as a holiday inside a season running November 1 through April 18, with both ends footnoted “Opening & Closing Days are dependent on conditions.” Mt. Baker has no snowmaking, so that calendar is a plan, not a promise.
We read the calendar image again this morning. The November panel is worth knowing exactly, because it sets what you pay if the lifts do turn:
| Thanksgiving-week day | 2026 date | How the calendar prices it |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Nov 23 | Off-peak |
| Tuesday | Nov 24 | Off-peak |
| Wednesday | Nov 25 | Off-peak |
| Thanksgiving Day | Nov 26 | Holiday — peak pricing |
| Friday–Sunday | Nov 27–29 | Weekend — peak pricing |
So the bargain days of that week are the three before the turkey, not the long weekend after it. The ski area’s own rule is that off-peak rates apply “Mondays through Thursdays (non-holidays),” and Thanksgiving is one of three Thursdays all season that the holiday flag pulls out of that window — the other two are Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, both also Thursdays on the 2026-27 calendar.
Late October above the ski area: snow on the high slopes, grass still standing below. This is the state the mountain is usually in a month before Thanksgiving, and how much falls in the next four weeks decides the holiday. Photo: Chanilim714, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
How often have the lifts actually been spinning at Thanksgiving?
Three of the last six seasons. We lined the verified opening dates up against the Thanksgiving date for each year, and it is close to a coin flip.
| Season | Thanksgiving | Lifts spinning that day? |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | Nov 27, 2025 | No — opened Dec 21 |
| 2024-25 | Nov 28, 2024 | Yes — opened Nov 20 |
| 2023-24 | Nov 23, 2023 | No — opened Dec 13 |
| 2022-23 | Nov 24, 2022 | Yes — opened Nov 17 |
| 2021-22 | Nov 25, 2021 | No — opened Dec 14 |
| 2020-21 | Nov 26, 2020 | Yes — opened Nov 20 |
Where the record distinguishes the two, the date shown is the passholder-only first day; Mt. Baker typically opens to everyone a day or two later, which in all three “yes” seasons still landed well before the holiday. Those dates come from dated reporting rather than aggregator projections: Cascadia Daily News for 2025, 2024 and 2022, FOX 13 Seattle for the 2022 passholder day, and The Snowboarder’s Journal for 2020, which describes November 20 as “a week before Thanksgiving.”
The split tracks November snowfall almost perfectly. From Mt. Baker’s own snowfall statistics, the three Thanksgiving-open seasons took 122, 75 and 123 inches in November; the three closed ones took 59, 33 and 31. There is no middle ground in that list. The threshold is roughly 20 to 40 inches at the Heather Meadows base, landing cold, with a forecast that supports keeping it — and when November delivers, it delivers properly. On November 21, 2024 the mountain opened to everyone with a 66-inch base and over 95% of its terrain skiable.
The call usually comes three or four days out, not three or four weeks. If you are driving from Seattle or Vancouver for Thanksgiving, you will be booking a cabin in October and finding out whether there is skiing some time around the Sunday before. Our guide to when Mt. Baker opens carries the full dated record and tracks the 2026-27 announcement.
Heather Meadows with the snow off it. The lots, the lift terminals and all of this ground have to disappear under a base before anything can be groomed. Photo: Bob Wick, U.S. Forest Service – Pacific Northwest Region, public domain. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
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What does a lift ticket cost over Thanksgiving?
$115.42 for an adult on Thanksgiving Day itself, against $98.80 on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday before it — both before Washington’s 8.3% sales tax. These are the 2026-27 published rates, checked today.
| Ticket | Peak (Fri–Sun + holidays, incl. Nov 26) | Off-peak (Mon–Wed of that week) |
|---|---|---|
| Adult 16-59 | $115.42 | $98.80 |
| Youth 11-15 | $71.10 | $60.94 |
| Child 7-10 | $49.86 | $41.55 |
| Senior 60-69 | $97.88 | $83.10 |
| Super senior 70+ | $68.33 | $58.17 |
A family of two adults and two youths saves about $53 before tax by riding the Wednesday instead of the Thursday.
One rule surprises nearly every first-time visitor, and it matters more at Thanksgiving than at any other holiday: you cannot buy a day ticket in advance. The ski area states it plainly — “Daily Lift Tickets are available for purchase day-of at the ski area only,” and “Pre-purchased, digital, or multi-day lift tickets are NOT available.” There is nothing to lose by booking a cabin before the opening date is announced, because there was never a ticket to forfeit. We price the rest of the trip out in what a Mt. Baker ski trip actually costs.
Lifts run 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and there is nothing on the mountain’s event calendar in November at all — the autumn run of events finishes in late October and the winter calendar does not pick up until the TIMBRRR! Best Trick contest on December 12. Thanksgiving week here is quiet by design.
Can you get Thanksgiving dinner in Glacier or Maple Falls?
Almost certainly not as a sit-down holiday meal. We checked every restaurant’s own website again today, and not one of them publishes a Thanksgiving menu, a Thanksgiving closure, or any holiday schedule at all. The corridor has perhaps half a dozen kitchens total; none of them is set up to serve a turkey dinner to a valley full of visitors.
This is the single most useful thing we tell guests about the holiday. Cook at the cabin. Both of ours have full kitchens, and the people who have the best Thanksgiving up here are the ones who arrived with a cooler and a plan.
Chair 9’s sign on the highway in Glacier — “OPEN 12” is the corridor’s standard starting time. Photo: Robert Ashworth, CC BY 2.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
What is actually open in the corridor over Thanksgiving week?
These are the normal posted schedules, read from each business’s own site today. None of them states a Thanksgiving-week exception either way, so treat the table as the baseline and phone ahead before you rely on any single row.
| Place | Posted schedule | Thursdays? |
|---|---|---|
| Chair 9, Glacier | Daily from noon; kitchen to 8pm Sun–Thu, 9pm Fri–Sat | Yes |
| Gunners Tex Mex BBQ, Glacier | Wed–Sun noon–8pm; closed Mon–Tue | Yes |
| Wake ‘n Bakery, Glacier | Shoulder hours, as short as 8am–12pm midweek | Mornings |
| North Fork Brewery, Deming | Every day, noon–9pm | Yes |
| Graham’s, Glacier | Site posts Mon–Thu 12–9, Fri–Sat 12–10, Sun 12–9 | Unresolved |
| Glacier Ski Shop, Glacier | Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 12–5pm; no weekday hours posted | No |
Three rows need their caveat stated out loud.
Graham’s is genuinely unclear. Its current site posts ordinary hours and no closure notice, but it has carried the same “coming soon in 2024” banner for two years, a second Graham’s domain now redirects to an unrelated overseas gambling page, and review aggregators have carried a “closed” flag since mid-2026. We have been unable to resolve the contradiction from a distance for several weeks. Call (360) 599-3302 before you drive up for it.
Wake ‘n Bakery publishes three different seasonal schedules and says outright that hours “are subject to change based on highway closures, power outages, extreme weather, and other unforeseen circumstances,” pointing you at its Instagram for the current one. In late November expect the short shoulder-season version, not the 7am-to-5pm winter one.
Glacier Ski Shop’s posted schedule does not include Thursdays. As of today the shop lists “Showroom & Rental Shop Hours, Sat. 10-5 & Sun. 12-5” and no weekday or winter hours at all — a change from the fall schedule it was carrying a few days ago, and a sign it is still moving. If the mountain opens, expect the week to fill in; if it has not, do not count on renting gear in Glacier on Thanksgiving morning. The ski rental guide covers the alternatives.
Glacier Ski Shop on the highway. Photo: Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
Where do you buy the food if you are cooking?
Below Maple Falls, and preferably before you leave town. There is no supermarket anywhere on the Mt. Baker Highway above Kendall. What the corridor has is Crossroads Grocery in Maple Falls at 7802 Silver Lake Road, which is a real grocery and not a gas-station cooler, plus limited shelves in Glacier.
Three things we tell every guest who is cooking a holiday meal here:
- Do the big shop before you turn up SR-542. A 14-pound turkey, brining space and a dozen side-dish ingredients is not a corridor-grocery errand, and the week of Thanksgiving is the worst possible week to discover that.
- Crossroads’ closing time is genuinely uncertain. It opens at 7am daily, but directories disagree about closing — some list 8pm, some 9pm, some 10pm — and we have not been able to confirm it from the store. Call (360) 599-9657 rather than planning a late run.
- There is no gas in Glacier. Last fuel is Maple Falls, 15 minutes back down the valley, which is covered properly in our services guide. Fill up on the way in.
The Maple Falls crossroads — last grocery, last fuel, last ATM. Photo: Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
What is there to do if the lifts are not running?
Quite a lot, as long as you plan it as the main event rather than the consolation prize. Late November in this valley is a low-elevation season: the high country is shut and the river corridor is at its best, empty and loud with water.
The things that work, and what each actually requires:
| Option | Where | What it needs in late November |
|---|---|---|
| Nooksack Falls | Milepost 40 | Nothing. Open year-round, five minutes from the car, viewing platform fenced |
| Horseshoe Bend trail | Milepost 35 | Northwest Forest Pass at the trailhead; one of the few trails that stays snow-free |
| Salmon Ridge Sno-Park | Milepost 46 | A Sno-Park permit and, realistically, snow — see below |
| Eagle viewing on the Nooksack | Down-valley | Nothing; the chum run is usually just getting going |
| Silver Lake Park | Maple Falls | Nothing; county park, day use open year-round |
One detail about Salmon Ridge that nobody states clearly. Washington sells Sno-Park permits from November 1 through April 30, at $25 for a day or $50 for the season, but Salmon Ridge’s own State Parks listing gives its grooming season as 12/1–3/31, and the Forest Service’s Sno-Park pages state the permit requirement as December 1 to March 31. Over Thanksgiving you are therefore ahead of the grooming season and in a grey zone on the permit, on 15 miles of ungroomed trail at 2,000 feet that often has no snow at all yet. If there is snow and you park there, buy the day permit and do not expect a track. Our snowshoeing guide has the access details and the higher alternatives.
The eagles are the genuine seasonal bonus. Whatcom County Parks calls the Nooksack eagle season December through March, so Thanksgiving is early — but local chum “spawn from October through January” per the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, and the birds follow the fish. Thanksgiving weekend often catches the leading edge of it; see eagle viewing on the Nooksack for where to stand and when the light is right.
The North Fork at Douglas Fir Campground, off-season. Photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
What is not available: the road to Artist Point. WSDOT gates the final 2.7 miles for the season with the first heavy snow, usually in October, so by Thanksgiving the highway ends at Heather Meadows and the alpine is done until summer. Our Artist Point road tracker follows it both directions.
Nooksack Falls at milepost 40 — open all winter, and five minutes off the highway. Photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and tonally adjusted.
What is the drive and the daylight like over Thanksgiving weekend?
Short days, and genuinely wintry above Glacier in a normal year. On Thanksgiving Day the sun rises at 7:31 a.m. and sets at 4:18 p.m. at Glacier — 8 hours and 46 minutes of daylight, calculated for the town’s coordinates. Any drive up-valley is a morning drive, and anyone planning to be out at the far end of the highway should be heading back by mid-afternoon.
SR-542 is open and maintained year-round to the ski area, but late November is exactly when the first chain requirements of the season appear, and Washington law requires you to carry chains in posted zones whatever your vehicle. WSDOT reports on the SR 542 mountain pass page daily from November 1, so by Thanksgiving week it is live — check it the morning you drive rather than the night before.
Two more things specific to this week. NWAC’s daily avalanche forecasts for West Slopes North resume around mid-November, so by Thanksgiving there is usually a real rating again — relevant the moment anyone in your group starts eyeing terrain outside the ropes, and unpacked in our avalanche forecast guide. And cell service dies around Kendall, so download your maps, your reservation and the drive before you lose signal. Our road conditions page keeps the live sources in one place all winter.
One thing that surprises first-timers: the valley floor is usually not white. Glacier sits just under 1,000 feet and the snow line often sits well above it, so you can drive a bare, wet highway through town while Heather Meadows at 4,300 feet is buried. A green Thanksgiving in Glacier tells you nothing about the top.
When do Thanksgiving cabins actually book?
Earlier than a normal week, and earlier than most people here book anything. Two numbers explain why.
From our own records of 403 completed stays, the median booking window in this corridor is 16 days — but stays of four nights or more ran a median of 60 days, because a long stay needs a run of consecutive nights nobody else has taken. Thanksgiving is a four-night holiday. Winter Friday and Saturday arrivals went at a median of 29 days, with a quarter of them 49 days or more. The full dataset is in how far ahead you need to book a Mt. Baker cabin.
The market agrees, and it is worth being precise about how it agrees. We pulled PriceLabs’ neighbourhood data for the Maple Falls area this morning, and Thanksgiving shows up on the demand side rather than the price side: November 25–27 is the single largest demand surge in the next twelve months, with occupancy 22.1% above the dates around it. On price it does not make the top three at all — today’s biggest price surges are December 26–30 (+44.8%), the first weekend of September 2027 (+28.2%) and January 14–17 (+27.1%). The week fills up; it does not command Christmas money.
Here is the market night by night as of today, across the 56 two-bedroom and surrounding one-to-three-bedroom listings PriceLabs tracks in this neighbourhood:
| Night | Share of market already booked |
|---|---|
| Fri Nov 20 | 12.6% |
| Sat Nov 21 | 12.6% |
| Mon Nov 23 | 11.8% |
| Tue Nov 24 | 16.9% |
| Wed Nov 25 | 29.9% |
| Thu Nov 26 | 34.2% |
| Fri Nov 27 | 28.2% |
| Sat Nov 28 | 21.3% |
| Sun Nov 29 | 11.9% |
Two things fall out of that. The Wednesday-to-Friday core is running at two to three times the booked share of the shoulder nights on either side, so the holiday itself is where the competition is — the weekend before Thanksgiving is barely touched. And November as a whole is 13% booked across the market today against 12% at this same point last year, which is level, not a surge. Last November finished at 43%. So roughly two thirds of the month’s beds are still unsold, and the Thanksgiving nights are already sitting two and a half times ahead of the month around them.
That makes this a three-week decision rather than a six-month one, and it makes the Thursday and Friday the nights to settle first.
In practice that means booking by early November, and it means the usual Mt. Baker trap applies with full force: you are committing to lodging before anyone knows whether there will be skiing. Given that day tickets cannot be pre-bought anyway, the only thing at stake in waiting is which cabin is left. Three of the last six Thanksgivings had no lifts at all and the week still filled, because people come for the holiday rather than the chairlift.
Where to stay for Thanksgiving
There is no lodging at Mt. Baker Ski Area — not a room, not a bunk. Both of our cabins are built for the version of this holiday where the cooking happens at home.
The Black Cedar in Glacier sleeps 6 across 3 bedrooms, roughly 40 minutes from the ski area and 10 from Glacier’s restaurants, with a kitchen that can hold a holiday dinner, a cedar barrel sauna and a hot tub that earns its keep on a dark November evening. The Little Red Cabin in Maple Falls sleeps 4, 45 minutes from the lifts and a three-minute drive from Crossroads — which, on a weekend when you are cooking, is a real argument.
Both cabins have a strict no-pets policy, and Thanksgiving is the week people most often ask. Booking direct gets you our best rate, straight from the owners. If you are still deciding between the two towns, where to stay near Mt. Baker lays out the tradeoff, and Mt. Baker lodging covers what else exists up here.
Sources
Everything time-sensitive on this page was checked against its own source on October 7, 2026 — the operations calendar, ticket rates, event calendar, snowfall statistics, every restaurant hours page below, Glacier Ski Shop and the Sno-Park pages. One thing had moved since our earlier check on October 4 and 5: Glacier Ski Shop replaced its posted fall schedule with Saturday 10–5 and Sunday 12–5, which is reflected above. Everything else read the same. The sources: the Mt. Baker operations calendar, daily lift ticket rates, mountain info FAQ, event calendar and snowfall statistics; Chair 9, Gunners BBQ, Wake ‘n Bakery, the North Fork Brewery, Graham’s and Glacier Ski Shop hours pages; Washington State Parks for Sno-Park permits and Salmon Ridge for its grooming season; and WSDOT for the highway. Opening dates come from the dated news reports linked above. Sunrise and sunset are calculated for Glacier, WA. Market demand and occupancy figures are PriceLabs neighbourhood data for the Maple Falls area, pulled 2026-10-07, and describe the surrounding rental market rather than our two cabins; vendor market analytics are restated from run to run, so treat them as a snapshot of that date. Booking-window figures come from our own 403 completed stays.
Hours and holiday schedules in this valley change without notice, and several of the businesses above do not publish a holiday calendar at all. Call before you count on any single one of them.
Last verified: 2026-10-07.