Category Archives: Run the Alps News

For the first time, Patagonia’s catalog features trail running on its front cover – and we’re psyched that it’s the new Via Valais route. The Via Valais roughly follows the famous backcountry skiing and hiking “Haute Routes” from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland, though it starts a bit closer to Zermatt, in the high mountain   Continue Reading →

It goes with saying that all our guides spend most of their summer trail running, but they also keep busy during the winter months, too! Here’s a look at what some of the team is up to now that the Alps are covered in a mantle of snow.  This winter Mark Brightwell continues to lead people on trips   Continue Reading →

Summer is an action-packed season for our Run the Alps’ guides. Many, if not most days, they are on the trails, leading a trip, undertaking route reconnaissance, or exploring new regions. After our last tours wind to a close in September, however, the Alps empty out. It’s not long before the snow settles on the   Continue Reading →

This trip is going to be one of the highlights of our 2018 Run the Alps season! We’re delighted to offer this special trail running adventure with noted US ultra-runner, Krissy Moehl. Coach, author, and winner of dozens of ultra-trail races, Krissy brings a warm and inclusive spirit to the sport that is perfectly in   Continue Reading →

Trail running here in the Alps is unlike anywhere else I’ve ever laced up my Salomons and headed out the door. One’s body simply needs time to adjust to the sheer verticality of it all— no matter what your pre-trip training back home. For me, a purely recreational runner, I notice a change at about three to four weeks. Like all   Continue Reading →

As trail running grows–some would say explodes in popularity–all manner of new ventures are taking shape. The ultra-famous, ultra-hard 166 km UTMB just announced yet one more event to its series—the OCC, Orsières-Champex-Chamonix. Running camps and personal trainers are showing up on the scene. In the states and throughout Europe, trail races are filling up in hours, sometimes minutes. Those of us   Continue Reading →

We have been at it for 20 minutes already, and I am soaked with sweat. Today’s race, Fully-Sorniot, offers runners a full five minutes of pleasant coasting along old village roads, until delivering the goods: 1.6 vertical kilometers of ass-kicking, no-holes-barred switchbacks. I try not to look up, but it’s too tempting. I glance skyward, and all I see is… rock.   Continue Reading →