Backcountry Rise

Backcountry Rise runs a single clockwise loop through the Mt. Margaret Backcountry, on the north side of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in Washington State. It starts and finishes at the Mount St. Helens Science and Learning Center, a former volcano observatory perched above Coldwater Lake and pointed at the caldera. Daybreak Racing, which also puts on the Hood Hundred, runs it.

The 50K covers 30.9 miles with 7,600 feet of climbing and the same in descent, about 98 percent of it on singletrack, with three aid stations and long gaps between them. The race calls it an advanced-level course and says so bluntly: "THIS IS A DIFFICULT RACE." A 20 miler and a half marathon start behind it the same morning.

A single clockwise loop from the Science and Learning Center: down the Elk Bench Trail to Coldwater Lake, along the Lakes Trail to the first aid station at mile 5, then a climb of nearly 3,000 feet up the Coldwater Creek canyon wall to Bear Camp at mile 15, and back over South Coldwater at mile 27.4 to finish at 30.9 miles. A mudslide washed out a bridge on Spirit Lake Highway in May 2023 and has kept Johnston Ridge Observatory closed since, so the race has run an alternate course in its place. Daybreak says the classic courses return in 2027.

Open sign-up on UltraSignup, priced in three tiers from January 15. The 50K has an experience requirement rather than a qualifying time: every entrant needs a trail ultramarathon finish, or a Backcountry Rise 20 miler finish, before race day, though it does not have to be met in order to register. Minimum gear is checked at bib pickup: capacity for at least a liter of fluid, a lightweight jacket, a safety whistle and an emergency blanket.