Garmin Mountain Festival

A few notes:

“Mountain Festival” what a perfect name and idea to extend the trail races beyond just the races.

Check the sponsors at the bottom of the website. This festival is very much instigated and supported by the local municipalities. What a different approach to the way things are in the US. We all know that Western States finished in Auburn, but there’s no connection to the city and it’s community beyond the location of the finish line being at Placer High School track.

Vall de Boí is a municipality consisting of eight small villages with a population of between 9 and 200 inhabitants. Its high mountain environment and extreme weather contributed to the isolation of the valley for many centuries. This, together with the nature of its people, their customs and traditions and an economy based for centuries on subsistence farming, has managed to preserve the territory and its natural and cultural riches almost intact.

I’d run here, and take my family:

The main attractions of the valley are the Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, the Baths of Caldes de Boí, the ski runs of Boí-Taüll Resort and the ensemble of Romanesque churches which have been declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The 42km race will be streamed live.

On Saturday the 2nd July at 9.30 a.m, visit this page to watch the GARMIN® Epic Trail 42K – Memorial Joan Rojas race live and direct.

Will be interesting to tune in and compare to WS coverage from last week.

Also: Didn’t know Garmin was still into this ‘sponsoring outdoor sports thing’.