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Ultras · US · PA

Pine Creek Challenge

50 Miler
Registration open
Race dateSeptember 12-13, 2026
Duration2 days
Whenin 3 days
First held2011
Official website Entry Notify me if this race changes
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.
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Aid stations 0
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The course

Where it goes

The race

What this one is

An out-and-back ultra on the Pine Creek Rail Trail through the Pine Creek Gorge (the "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania") near Wellsboro, PA, run concurrently at four distances (100 Mile, 100K, 50 Mile, Marathon) from a shared start/finish at Asaph. The trail is finely crushed limestone, 20 feet wide, closed to motor vehicles, and loses only about 900 feet over 63 miles (a 2% grade) -- flat enough that the race markets itself as beginner-friendly and a common choice for a first 100-miler.

First run at least by 2011 (UltraSignup results are on file back to 2011). The 100-mile course was originally longer: a 2013 crew report describes the out-and-back continuing south past Blackwell through Slate Run and Cedar Run aid stations to a turnaround near the village of Cammal (Blackwell was passed at mile 79.1, not the turnaround). By 2016 (per an archived course-map image) and continuing through the current 2026 listing, the course has been shortened to turn around AT Blackwell, with the Slate Run/Cedar Run/Cammal stations no longer part of the race.

Getting in

Getting in Entry, lottery and what the race asks of you before race day.

Lottery
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Lottery opens
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Lottery draw
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Field cap
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Registration
UltraSignup ultrasignup.com
Qualifying
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Minimum age
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Transfers
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Deferrals
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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
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Vehicles per runner
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Pacers
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Muling
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Drop bags
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Cupless
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Course marking
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Night running
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Dogs
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Headphones
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Crew rules
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Pacer rules
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Drop bag rules
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Cutoff philosophy
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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.

Nobody has been out there with a camera or a microphone yet. A gap means nobody has found it, not that it is not out there. Seen a course preview or a film of this one? Send us the link.

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.

Leave blank if it applies to the whole race.

Leave blank if it is not about one particular stop.

Optional. Something like “Cal Street, mile 62 to 78”.

Write it the way you would say it to someone at the start line.

Optional, and it decides nothing. It only tells the next runner where this is coming from.

Optional.

Optional, and never shown on the page. Only so we can ask you a question about this note.

Leave this field blank.

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.

Optional. Filled in for you when you start from a specific line on the page.

Copy it as it appears, so we can find it.

The corrected value.

Required. Where it came from: the race email, the runner manual, what you saw on the day.

Optional.

Optional. A screenshot or a photo of the sign works.

Optional, and it decides nothing.

Optional.

Optional, only so we can come back to you about this correction.

Leave blank if it is about the whole race.

Leave blank if it is not about one particular stop.

Leave this field blank.

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.

Required. A line is plenty. Where the climbs are, what the footing does, what the last twenty miles look like.

Optional, and it decides nothing.

Optional.

Optional, and never shown on the page. Only so we can ask you a question about this one.

A YouTube link, a race report, a photo gallery, whatever it is.

Optional, and we credit them on the page.

Leave this field blank.

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.

The page or file on the race's own site.

Optional, and only so we can ask you a question about it.

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.

Required, because this is a conversation and we write back.

Tell us what is wrong, out of date, or missing on this page. We read every one of these and we will get back to you.

Optional.

So we know who we are writing back to.

Optional. Director, assistant, comms, whoever you are.

Leave this field blank.

Where this came from. Every fact on this page records its source and when we last checked it: 25 sources for this race. Hover a source link to read the sentence it came from.
0% of what we track for a course is filled in. The rest says "not checked yet" rather than guessing.
See something wrong or out of date? Suggest an edit
Ran this race? Tell the next runner what you know
Got footage of this course? Send us the link
Are you the race director? Get in touch and we'll make it right.
Anything else: [email protected]

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.

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.
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