Blog

Here’s a truism about European and American trail runners: they don’t always dress the same. As a friend of mine once said, “Everyone in the US wants to look like Anton Krupicka.” What she meant was: shorts, no shirt, shoes, and– maybe if it’s cold outside– a pair of socks. Meanwhile, my first few years   Continue Reading →

One of the sure signs of fall in the Alps is the steady shift in color above treeline. The greenish hues of vegetation shift to brown and a deep red, as temperatures drop and early snows come and go. Another sign is liters of wild blueberries– no longer on the plants, but often picked and   Continue Reading →

A week ago, I finished running Tor des Geants, the epic endurance trail race in the Italian Alps. “Running” might not be the ideal word, since all of us 711 starters spent most of our 4-6 days fast hiking, shuffling, walking, and basically finding any way possible to keep moving forward. Only occasionally did most   Continue Reading →

The Tor des Geants– a 330 km trail race with an incomprehensible 33,000 meters of vertical– takes place around the high cols and mountains above the Aosta Valley, Italy, each September. The week-long event has just wrapped up, and one thing that you can say about Tor is that there are always a few stories   Continue Reading →

Run the Alps friend Emily Schmitz is an American trail runner living in Chamonix, France. In 2019, she finished 5th in UTMB‘s OCC race. This year, she finished 11th. I am not a natural mountain runner. I grew up in Milwaukee, a city that sits in the heart of the Midwestern US, known for breweries,   Continue Reading →

Sometimes, every now and then, the camera is in the right place at the right time and captures something very special. That’s what happened this past July here in Chamonix, when Run the Alps ambassador and Black Diamond athlete Hillary Gerardi won Chamonix’s 90 km trail race, the longest race in the Marathon Mont Blanc   Continue Reading →

The 2021 Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc® was a remarkable edition of the world’s largest trail running event. There were jaw-dropping performances across the event’s eight races– perhaps most notably, a new women’s course record in the marquee event, the 100-mile UTMB race around the Mont-Blanc massif. Courtney Dauwalter, of Golden, Colorado, finished in 22:30:54,   Continue Reading →

Coming to Chamonix to trail run? Here’s the inside scoop, with input from more than a dozen local trail runners.

Krissy Moehl, 43, of Bellingham, Washington, is one of America’s best-known trail runners. She has competed in more than 100 ultras around the world. A Patagonia ambassador, she has been on a wide range of adventures from the Alps to China to Chile and most places in between. In 2015, she became the youngest woman   Continue Reading →

Run the Alps Director of Sustainability Jen Stretton writes about her first trail race– the legendary Marathon du Mont-Blanc.