Behind the Rocks Ultra

On Saturday, March 28, 2026, the Behind the Rocks Ultra takes place in Moab, Utah, offering four distances across the canyon country of the Behind the Rocks Wilderness Study Area: 50 miles, 50 kilometres, 30 kilometres, and 10 miles. The course traverses the terrain that gives the area its name, moving through a landscape of Navajo Sandstone domes and fins, sandy washes, double-track mining corridors, and technical singletracks that require the kind of attentive footwork that flat-road runners explore abruptly on their first desert trail. Views of natural arches, stacked rock formations, and the La Sal Mountain Range, which frame the final approach to the finish line with unusual grandeur, constitute a visual programme that the race’s difficulty level is genuinely insufficient to explain on its own.

The Course and Its Four Distances

The 50-mile and 50-kilometre races occupy the full range of the Wilderness Study Area’s terrain, including the extended ridge walking and technical descent sections that define ultra-distance desert running in the Colorado Plateau region. The 30-kilometre course introduces the characteristic route features, including the sandstone domes and wash crossings, in a format accessible to trail runners without an ultra-distance background. The 10-mile option serves as a genuine desert trail introduction at a distance that rewards effort without requiring multi-hour desert navigation. All distances start and finish at the same location, where free camping is available for the full race weekend, creating a self-contained running community atmosphere across the event’s two days of camp and competition.

Good to Know: Free camping at the start and finish creates the social infrastructure of a true trail running destination event rather than a road-race transactional format. Participants should arrive Friday for setup and trail familiarisation before Saturday’s starts. Morning temperatures in Moab in late March can approach freezing at pre-dawn start times before rising toward the mid-teens Celsius by midday; dress accordingly across all distances. No race-day registration is typical for this event; confirm registration details and any packet pickup requirements at the official Behind the Rocks Ultra website.

The Behind the Rocks Landscape and Arches National Park

The Behind the Rocks Wilderness Study Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, lies immediately south and west of Moab and contains terrain that most Arches and Canyonlands visitors never access: the labyrinthine sandstone fins and domes of the BLM wilderness are visually analogous to the national park formations but without the managed trail and permit infrastructure that increasingly governs the park’s most popular destinations. Arches National Park, three kilometres north of Moab on US-191, provides the complement for rest days and family members not running, with its paved Windows Section loop delivering six major arches within a two-kilometre walk. For runners and families building a Moab desert stay around the ultra weekend, Lake.com lists the Utah County Lake View Retreat as a vacation rental base in the greater Utah canyon corridor.