Dark Divide Trail Races
2026 Dark Divide Trail Races
50K
Scheduled
100 Miler registration on UltraSignup is marked 'Closed Aug 20 @ 11:59 PM' while the 50K listing on the same page is marked 'Open' at the same time; the page's own text is internally inconsistent about which distances are still open 14 days before the race. Recorded as a conflict, not resolved.
Race dateSeptember 6, 2026
Start7:00am
When40 days ago
First held2021
Who's going to Dark Divide Trail Races?
Free. You can start with nothing.
Free, and always will be. NavRun makes money from race-day planning for runners who want it, never from this.
Ultras change constantly, sometimes the morning of. Always confirm with the race director and the official website before you rely on anything here.
Distance
50K
Climb
9,181 ft
Descent
9,182 ft
High point
5,870 ft
Time limit
11:00:00
Aid stations
5
Started
not checked yet
Finished
not checked yet
Finish rate
not checked yet
The course
Where it goes
out and back · 5 aid stations
The Dark Divide 50K: an out-and-back from Cispus Learning Center up to Tongue Mountain and along the ridgeline of Juniper Ridge out to Sunrise Peak and back, 32.44 measured miles with 9,181 ft of gain / 9,182 ft of loss. Entirely a daylight race (7:00 AM start, 6:00 PM cutoff, well within sunrise/sunset).
Over 9,000 feet of elevation gain (page prose); official chart/GPX give 9,181 ft gain / 9,182 ft loss and 32.44 miles, both matching each other and each other's Lowest/Highest Elevation figures (1,294 ft / 5,870 ft) exactly. Route passes Juniper Ridge twice (AS #1 outbound, AS #2 return) as the out-and-back turnaround waypoint; recorded here as out_and_back rather than loop since start and finish are the same location (Cispus) and the outbound/return legs largely retrace the same ridge.
The race
What this one is
A wilderness trail-race weekend (100 Mile, 100K, 50K, 15 Mile) through the 70,000+ acre Dark Divide Roadless Area in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, based at the Cispus Learning Center near Randle, Washington. The 100 Miler is a Hardrock 100 qualifier.
Wonderland Running founder Sean Harrasser has run the race since its start; a 2026 Facebook post from the organizer calls the 2026 edition "year six," placing the first edition in 2021. The race is dedicated in part to the memory of five-time Hardrock finisher Mike "Bushwhacker" Burke.
Getting in
Getting in
Entry, lottery and what the race asks of you before race day.
- Lottery
-
No
wonderlandrunning.com
- Lottery opens
-
not checked yet
- Lottery draw
-
not checked yet
- Field cap
-
not checked yet
- Registration
-
UltraSignup
ultrasignup.com
- Qualifying
-
not checked yet
- Minimum age
-
not checked yet
- Transfers
-
No
wonderlandrunning.com
- Deferrals
-
No
wonderlandrunning.com
Running, crewing, pacing or still deciding
How NavRun helps with Dark Divide Trail Races
Eleven hours.
You are running it
You reach Juniper Ridge #2, mile 23.7, and you already knew this morning what time that would be.
An arrival time for all 3 stations, worked out from your own training.
Start free →
You are deciding
You find out Dark Divide Trail Races is months of work away, not years, and you enter.
Put in a race you have already run. NavRun shows you where this one sits from where you are.
No account needed →
Crew access, pacers and drop bags
The rules that shape your day
Anything marked "not checked yet" is a gap in what we hold, never a no from the race.
- Crew allowed
-
Yes
wonderlandrunning.com
- Vehicles per runner
-
not checked yet
- Pacers
-
No
wonderlandrunning.com
- Muling
-
not checked yet
- Drop bags
-
Yes
wonderlandrunning.com
- Cupless
-
Yes
wonderlandrunning.com
- Course marking
-
not checked yet
- Night running
-
No
wonderlandrunning.com
- Dogs
-
Not allowed
wonderlandrunning.com
- Headphones
-
Not allowed
wonderlandrunning.com
- Crew rules
-
not checked yet
- Pacer rules
-
No Pacer Pickup column appears on the official 50K aid-station chart at all (unlike the 100 Miler and 100K charts, which both have one) -- recorded as pacers not offered on this course, inferred from that absence rather than an explicit 'no pacers' statement.
wonderlandrunning.com
- Drop bag rules
-
Drop bags allowed at stations marked Yes on the official aid-station chart; no size limit published. No mandatory-light-source paragraph appears on this chart (unlike the 100 Miler/100K charts), consistent with the race running entirely in daylight.
wonderlandrunning.com
- Cutoff philosophy
-
As this is a steep, technical, remote, and long 50K, you will have a generous 11 hour cutoff to make sure you get your hard earned finish with some time to take in the resplendent meadows and Cascade mountainscapes.
wonderlandrunning.com
Aid stations
Every stop, and what you get there
● yes ○ no ? nobody has checked – does not apply to this race
| Mile |
Station |
Cutoff |
Crew access |
Bag |
Pacer |
Med |
To next |
| 0.00 |
Cispus Learning Center
|
? |
● |
? |
? |
? |
8.34 |
| 8.34 |
Juniper Ridge #1
|
? |
● |
● |
? |
? |
7.87 |
| 16.21 |
Sunrise Peak
|
1:30pm |
○ |
● |
? |
? |
7.46 |
| 23.67 |
Juniper Ridge #2
|
? |
● |
● |
? |
? |
8.77 |
| 32.44 |
Cispus Learning Center (Finish)
|
6:00pm |
● |
● |
? |
? |
? |
Same race, other lines
Other distances and other years
What it looks like out there
Somebody has been out there with a camera
the tables say the climb is long. these say what long feels like.
2 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.
These are other people's work and we link straight to them. Watching costs nothing and needs no account.
More of them: every race we hold, on film.
Add to this page
What you know
every one of these is read by a person before it changes anything
Ran this race? Tell the next runner what you know.
Nobody sees it until we have read it. No account, no sign-in.
See something wrong or out of date? Suggest an edit.
This changes nothing on the page on its own. Somebody checks it against the race first.
Seen a course preview or a film of this one? Send it over.
Somebody watches it before it goes anywhere near this page. What we are after is footage of this course, on the ground. If it would be just as true of any other race, it is not this.
Have the GPX? Send us the link.
We want the address of the file the race publishes, not the file. We download it from there so the page can say where the line came from.
Are you the race director? Get in touch and we'll make it right.
We read every one of these and we write back. Every fact here carries the source it came from, and the way a wrong one gets fixed is a person checking it against what you tell us.
Where this came from.
Every fact on this page records its source and when we last checked it: 108 sources for this race. Hover a source link to read the sentence it came from.
51% of what we track for a course is filled in. The rest says "not checked yet" rather than guessing.
Ultras change. We will tell you when this one does.
Cutoffs move, races get postponed, lotteries open and close. We read the race's own sources and record where every fact came from. Put your email in and we will send you what changed, and where we read it.
No account, and nothing to cancel.
What happens to your email. Nothing else. I do not sell it, and I will not send you anything except this race changing. One click gets you out.
I keep this catalog because the information is scattered and hard to trust. Telling you when it moves is the same job.
