Registration is open for the 2024 Canyons by UTMB this coming April 26/27. But it appears it won’t be the North American Major again? The listed running stones are not listed as double and there’s no mentioning off it being a Major on the web page.

Have they not decided yet? Will the Majors be switched every year? Is there a new race announcement forthcoming? So many questions…

PS: I haven’t added the changes to my UTMB Events Calendar, waiting for more confirmation.

CNN:

Part of the summit of a mountain in the Austrian state of Tyrol has collapsed, sending more than 100,000 cubic meters of rock crashing into the valley below and triggering mudslides. 

Rocks started falling Sunday from Fluchthorn, a nearly 3,400 meter (11,155 foot) mountain in the Silvretta Alps on the border between Switzerland and Austria, in an incident state geologists have said was caused by thawing permafrost.

Our mountain playgrounds all over the world will look very different in a few decades, sigh…

Thank you for listening to my podcast Singletrack. Thanks for the support throughout all these years and for the comments, reviews and replies. Here’s to 100,000 more!

So, just to add more confusion, the aforementioned World Cup is a “global” tour (and I use the world global here with big air quotes because the tour is one race in the US (Broken Arrow) and a few races in Europe) and is not to be confused with the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships.

Got it?

I had missed that sponsorship announcement and it’s a strange one but also a great one. Italian Plumbing Supply Company ‘Valsier’ is sponsoring the World Mountain Running Association’s World Cup for the 2023 and 2024 season.

From the WMRA official press announcement back in December:

As well as providing opportunities for the athletes at the very front of the race, both Valsir and WMRA are hopeful that they can their collaboration can persuade non-runners to give the sport a try. With all Valsir World Cup races open to all, they are a perfect opportunity to sample the incredible experience of racing in the mountains, lining up should-to-shoulder with the best off-road athletes in the world.

I mean, I want to snark about these strange bedfellows, but it’s kind of cool that a sponsor so completely unrelated to our sport is seeing the potential and willing to support not just the top athletes but the entire field of runners.

Bryon in his farewell post:

…iRunFar grew from a personal training blog to a one-man informational website to one full-on media entity. Today, we have four full-time staff, a slew of supporting staff within AllGear Digital, and many columnists, writers, and race coverage assistants. I’m proud of the fact that iRunFar is now a global leader in trail running and ultrarunning.

…

However, it’s time for me to pass on the baton of leadership while I collect my breath and support the team as they sprint on. Fortunately, the most capable hands of our current Managing Editor, Meghan Hicks, are there to receive the handoff and run the next leg as Editor-in-Chief.

No other outdoor media blog/product has shaped the ultra racing world as much as iRunFar over the last few years. Their team pioneered live reporting via Twitter from major races while staying true to their scrappy blog feel of old. And while they added pre and post race video interviews they never “pivoted to video” or jumped on any other short lived new media trend.

I’m glad to hear they are sticking around and staying in good hands.

Singletrack – Episode 277:

Calling in from Innsbruck, Austria is Doug Mayer, founder of Run the Alps, wonderful supporter of the Trail Running Film Festival and author of the incredible new book: “The Race That Changed Running – the inside story of UTMB”. In this episode we chat about his new book – which you should buy immediately, the difference between Euro and US trail running, the challenges our sport is facing as it’s growing into the future, and of course the role that UTMB plays in all of this.

LINKS

• Get the book: The Race that Changed Everything – The Inside Story of UTMB by Doug Mayer
• Run the Alps
• Run the Alps on Instagram

The events have been thrilling to follow all week and Innsbruck has played an incredible host, but man, WMTRC, or World Mountain and Trail Running Championship is the worst imaginable name. What bureaucrats came up with this mouthful of a convoluted piece of insanity? Come on, trail running deservers a better name for such an incredible event. Let’s get on this.

One of the craziest events and absolutely incredible to follow along online. Love it all so much. So happy this hike and fly event across the Alps is back for another year.

And the honor goes to the new Speedland variant GS:PGH.

Blood splatter design on the sole? I have no words for this. The shoe is a ‘collab’ with bow hunter, meat eater, and all around white bearded man Cam Hanes. Cam also has a lot more followers on Instagram than Dylan Bowman, who partnered on Speedland’s last shoe drop. We quickly went from #trailculture to… something else here.

About a year ago I realized I needed one more passion project in my life. Within a timespan of 48hrs after that realization I had built a new website, called it Electric Cable Car, secured the domain! and started blogging, again. Now, after a full year in operation of this fine, old school web blog I wanted to share some numbers:

• I published 411 posts and articles. This is post 412.
• In total I wrote 55,374 words, not counting these.
• As UTMB added more and more events, I’ve made 9 updates and revisions to the UTMB Events calendar, one of the most visited pages on the site.
• Finally, over unique 2,000 readers visited the website.

Thanks for reading and being part of the journey.

This is year one and we’re just getting started!

Everest and its surrounding mountains attract a lot of attention from climbers and the media each year. This year, the consensus seems to be that it was a year NOT worth writing home about.

Hannah Ellis-Petersen for the Guardian:

Experts say this is likely to be one of the deadliest years on record on Mount Everest, with variable weather caused by climate change being blamed as one of the main reasons for the deaths of up to 17 people.

Alan Arnette for Outside:

Climbers and expedition leaders must now take stock of what is one of the most chaotic and deadly years in the mountain’s history.

Brian Metzler for Trailrunner:

Kilian Jornet Survives an Avalanche Below Mount Everest

And beyond Everest: Stefan Nestler for the blog Abenteuer Berg:

All hope was in vain, now it is sad certainty. Luis Stitzinger, one of the most successful mountaineers in Germany, is dead. 

Adrian Ballinger sums things up pretty:

To be clear, this year’s death toll is inexcusable in our industry. The disregard for life (worker and client) of some of the current Everest operators is gross. The mountain can be climbed and guided without these constant tragedies.

Let’s see what the gender split looks like for those wanting to run, not hike this spirit quest on the Santiago de Compostela in France on this UTMB event that went down this past weekend.

• L’Ultra du Saint-Jacques (126 km) Starters: 558, DNF: 138, Finishers: 419 – 14 women 3%.
• Le Grand Trail du Saint-Jacques (75 km) Starters: 963, DNF: 61, Finishers: 902 – 76 women 8%.
• Le Maratrail du Saint-Jacques (46 km) Starters: 1064, DNF: 17, Finishers: 1,047 – 185 women 18%.
• Le Trail des Chibottes (18km) Starters: 780, DNF: 7, Finishers: 772 – 280 women 36%.

I didn’t capture the numbers for the two hiking distances the event is offering. Overall the event saw 2,648 runners finishing their races, just 555 were women, or 21%. It seems that women aren’t really into pilgrimaging for are religion that historically considered them second-class citizens.

DC Rainmaker has a summary of all the new additions to iOS, iPadOS and especially watchOS. Some good health related features are coming to the iPad and the watchOS updates for the Hiking screen look pretty cool showing you waypoints for last cellular location and places to use the SOS feature.

Not sure if I would’ve made the decision to enter that shoe market given the strong opinions people have of the running shoes, but there’s probably no other store in the US that sells more HOKA and ON shoes, so REI has the numbers to back up this decision. I have not been able to see the shoe in person but from the silhouette posted online it reminds me a bit of AllBirds, a brand REI recently started to carry. Behind-the-scenes collab?

Yeah, this is totally not ‘running’ or ‘mountain’ related by ‘Ted Lasso’ is a pretty great show on Apple TV+ and we occasionally talk here about NIKE, so it’s worth mentioning (I guess) that NIKE just dropped some “official” AFC Richmond gear.

Now, AFC is a fake football club but the shirts are ‘real jerseys’. So far so good, but what’s hilarious is that the makers of this Apple TV show that’s all about empathy and inclusion, decide to green light merch that’s only available in MENS SIZING.

If this would be some flash-in-the-pan promo shit I wouldn’t care to post about it, but there’s a rumor that Apple might be selling the gear in their online store and in the physical stores, which would be a first for them and sort of a big deal. And, the partnership is with NIKE and not some typical merch crap that Warner Brothers’s selling (Ted Lasso bobblehead anyone?).

Good thing it’s Pride month and not Women’s History month anymore… I guess?

Singletrack – Episode 276:

Steve Auch is back on Singletrack and barely recovered from a massive weekend race directing the popular City und Trail event in Bad Reichenhall in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. We talk about the beauty and the challenges of directing races, the inspiration and the difference between races in the US and Europe and how to transition from behind the megaphone to putting the bib back on yourself.

LINKS

• Steve Auch on Instagram
• City und Trail 
• City und Trail on Instagram
• Zugspitz Ultra
• Rennsteiglauf