Flagship ranking · updated July 10, 2026
Best Trail Races & Ultras in the US
Ranking trail races with the same formula as road marathons would be malpractice, so we don't. Trail races score on their own curve: field size is calibrated to a world where 400 entrants is enormous, USATF certification doesn't apply and isn't counted against anyone, and course character — scenery plus raw elevation gain — carries a quarter of the score, because in this discipline the course is the point. The breakdown is on every row, as always.
What the formula can't capture, and we'll say plainly: most of the races at the top of this list are harder to get into than they are to finish. Lotteries, qualifiers, and years-long waits are the norm at the front of American trail running. We rank the races, not your odds — check each race's entry process before you fall in love.
This slice leans ultra because the seed data does; shorter trail races are being added as UltraSignup coverage comes online. Methodology is public, rankings are never sold, and race directors can claim their listing free.
Composite /100 · FLD field · HST history · CRD credentials · CHR character
- 1 Western States 100 72.2/100
- 2 Leadville Trail 100 70.4/100
- 3 Dipsea Race 68.6/100
- 4 JFK 50 Mile 65.2/100
- 5 Broken Arrow Skyrace 59.4/100
- 6 Chuckanut 50K 59.3/100
- 7 Quad Rock 50 54.2/100
- 8 Black Canyon 100K 53.5/100
The oldest 100-mile trail race in the world and the sport's Boston: 100 miles from Olympic Valley to Auburn through the Sierra high country and the canyons, with a finish lap on the Placer High track that has ended more than one running documentary in tears. A field capped in the hundreds and a lottery measured in years keep its size score tiny — everything else about it is the ceiling of the sport.
The Race Across the Sky: 100 miles out-and-back above 9,200 feet in the Colorado Rockies, with the climb over Hope Pass — twice — as its centerpiece. Born in 1983 to save a dying mining town, it built the buckle-chasing culture of American ultrarunning. The thin air is the real opponent; the cutoff clock is a close second.
The oldest trail race in America — run since 1905 — and still the strangest and best 7.4 miles in the sport: Mill Valley over the shoulder of Mount Tam to Stinson Beach, staircases and all, with a legendary handicap start that lets grandmothers and Olympians race head-to-head, and shortcut lore passed down like family recipes. Its history component is nearly maxed, and no race on this list has earned one more.
The oldest ultramarathon in the country, born from JFK's 1963 fitness challenge, and the best on-ramp in the sport: rocky Appalachian Trail early, then 26 flat miles of C&O Canal towpath where road runners get to feel at home. A November date, a big field by ultra standards, and six decades of history make it the highest-scored 'first ultra' pick on the board.
The youngest race on this list and the future of it: a June festival of European-style skyrunning above Olympic Valley, with snowfields, via ferrata, and the deepest sub-ultra trail fields in North America. Its history component is a rounding error — its character score is not. Expect this one to climb the board every year the longevity math compounds.
Thirty-plus years of March mud outside Bellingham, and the unofficial season opener for elite North American trail running — the start lists here read like a preview of the year. A flat first and last 10K sandwich a mountainous middle on the Chuckanut ridge. Small, low-frills, beloved; the size cap on its score is the community's favorite feature.
The local's pick: 11,000 feet of climbing looped through the foothills above Fort Collins, mixing punchy ascents with genuinely runnable ridgelines. A few hundred entrants, no lottery drama, real mountains. It sits near the bottom of this list's composites while being exactly the kind of race the list exists to surface — proof you don't need a famous name to find a great day out.
The February desert descent that has become the sport's Golden Ticket hunting ground — its finish line doubles as a Western States qualifier chase, which stacks the field absurdly deep for a race barely a decade old. Fast, runnable Sonoran singletrack with saguaro for crowd support. Young and mid-sized, says the formula; consequential, says everyone in the sport.