Alps Trail Racing News: An Expanding Map
Top photo: Milo Zanecchia
For trail runners planning their summer race calendars in the Alps, there have never before been so many options to choose from. New events are entering the scene, old ones are redefining their courses, and the fields at races across the region grow larger as more runners discover trail running every year.
Here’s what’s happening in Alps trail racing in 2026:
Grand Raid Kiprun 3 Vallées
The most significant new arrival on the Alpine racing calendar is the Grand Raid Kiprun 3 Vallées. Based around Moûtiers in the Savoie Alps of France, this 170km/12,000m elevation gain race launches in July 2026. It’ll be one of the most demanding new races in the region, and arrives pointedly independent. Grand Raid Kiprun 3 Vallées is being billed as potentially the most difficult 100-mile event in the Alps. The course links seven of Savoie’s best-known ski resorts — Courchevel, Méribel, Val Thorens, Les Menuires, Orelle, the Bellevilles, and Brides-les-Bains — in a single loop from Moûtiers, climbing as high as Cime Caron at 3195m. It will be a test of whether a major new race can build an audience early, with no qualifying points or stones needed.
Grossglockner Ultra-Trail
In the Austrian Alps, the Grossglockner Ultra-Trail undergoes its most notable structural change in years: SALTY Trailrunning joins as co-organiser, signalling a shift in how the event positions itself without altering the terrain that defines it. The flagship GGUT covers 110km with 6500m elevation gain in a circuit of the Grossglockner (3798m), passing 14 glaciers and crossing three Austrian federal states. Shorter options range from 37km to 84km.
Hochkönig Ultraks
The Hochkönig Ultraks in Austria is an established event stepping into a new chapter — the relaunch of what was previously the Hochkönigman, an event that ran for a decade around the Hochkönig massif near Maria Alm outside of Salzburg. The rebrand brings it into the international Ultraks series, with a restructured programme that now spans five distances from 20km to 71.5km (4150m elevation gain), plus a new Vertical Race starting in the village of Dienten am Hochkönig for the first time. It’s a meaningful shift for a region whose high Almen (mountain pastures) and handcrafted mountain cheeses give it a distinctly local character. The question is how much of that identity the new format retains as the event reaches for a wider international field.
MaXi-Race
The MaXi-Race at Lac d’Annecy, France, a long-running fixture on the Alpine trail calendar, has quite literally flipped for 2026 — reversing the route completely. The flagship Tour du Lac race, roughly 100km with 6000m of gain, will run clockwise for the first time in its 15-year history. The change comes from collaboration with local authorities and advocates, and reflects real pressures: hotter summers, afternoon thunderstorms, need for shaded sections, and more manageable late-day terrain. It’s a practical response to a changing mountain environment, and runners who know the course well will experience it through an entirely new lens.
LOWA Trail Trophy
The LOWA Trail Trophy is into its second year after its 2025 premiere in Allgäu and Tyrol. The four-stage race runs from Pfronten, Germany into the Tyrolean Alps of Austria over four days. The course covers 103km and 7241m of elevation gain through terrain that takes in views of the Zugspitze and the Tannheimer rock faces. For many, its appeal lies in the point-to-point logic, bag transport provided between stages, and the sense of moving through and truly immersing oneself in the landscape over multiple days.
Oberaudorf Trail Festival
Out in the Bavarian foothills, the Oberaudorf Trail Festival launched in 2024 beneath the Wilder Kaiser and Wendelstein massifs about an hour from Munich. It runs its second full edition in October 2026 as a season-closing festival with live music and a community program alongside the racing. A 100km option has been added to the flagship Wendelstein Ultra of 56.5km/3228m elevation gain. Dynafit joins as title sponsor under its partnership with SALTY Trailrunning.
Transalpine Run
The Transalpine Run, a stage race with more than two decades of history in the Alps, will also be under new ownership for its 2026 edition. Marking its 21st year with a completely new course, it will run from Lenzerheide to Locarno, Switzerland, crossing the Rhine Gorge and finishing on the shores of Lake Maggiore. The event has been redesigned with an emphasis on wild and secluded mountain terrain. The route passes through some of Graubünden’s most remote villages, including Vrin, a car-free farming community in the Val Lumnezia, before crossing the high Greina Plateau and descending along Ticino’s ancient mule paths. Around 600 competitors will attempt to traverse the Alps over the event’s seven days, covering over 250km and 15,000m of elevation gain.
Vauban Mountain Trail
In Briançon, France, the Vauban Mountain Trail enters its second year with upgraded status – now confirmed as a stage on the WMRA Mountain Running World Cup circuit. The Grand Parcours is 14km long with 1000m elevation gain, winding through the UNESCO-listed Vauban fortifications above the old town. A separate Verticale du Prorel climbs 6km with 1150m of gain for a World Cup Uphill stage. It’s a good fit for the town, one of the highest in Europe, which has a long association with mountain sports, and whose fortifications, designed by the military architect Vauban in the late 17th century, give the race a distinctive historical character.
Zugspitz Ultra Trail
In a significant shakeup for the German trail running scene, the Zugspitz Ultra Trail will join the UTMB World Series in 2026, after 15 years as an independent event. Founded in 2011 by Heini and Uta Albrecht, the race has become one of the flagship events on the German trail calendar, drawing a predominantly German and Bavarian field, and selling out its 4000+ entries every year. Heini and Uta also created several other now-classic events, including the Transalpine Run, the Salomon 4-Trail, and the LOWA Trail Trophy, making them arguably the architects of the modern German and Austrian trail scene. Their step back from the sport’s biggest stages leaves a notable gap, though the new ownership has pledged to keep the Zugspitz rooted in its regional identity and community spirit.
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Besides changes in courses and ownership, a few races are making changes to their policies affecting lotteries and the impact of travel. Notably, two of the main events in the Chamonix valley:
Mont-Blanc Marathon, organized by the Chamonix Sports Club and in partnership with Protect Our Winters France, reserves 40% of its bibs for participants arriving by train or bus, and requires carbon offsetting at registration, the first trail race anywhere to do so. Beginning in 2025, the results were striking: 77.6% of participants chose low-carbon transport, car use fell from 36% to 16% in a single year, and nearly half of all runners arrived by public transit.
UTMB Mont-Blanc’s approach is more graduated, though significant at scale. New for 2026, all participants pay a mandatory carbon contribution calculated on the distance they travel and their means of transportation. At roughly 25 euros per ton of CO2, that amounts to somewhere between 45 and 75 euros for someone flying from the United States, and close to nothing for a European resident arriving by train. A 30% lottery bonus sweetens the arrangement for anyone committing to low-carbon travel.
