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Ultras · US · CO

The Bear Chase

5K Sunday
Registration open
Registration is open.
Race dateOctober 3-4, 2026
Duration2 days
Whenin 24 days
First held2010
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.
Distance not checked yet
Climb not checked yet
Descent not checked yet
High point not checked yet
Time limit not checked yet
Aid stations 0
Started not checked yet
Finished not checked yet
Finish rate not checked yet
The course

Where it goes

The race

What this one is

The Bear Chase Race Endurance Festival is a trail-running weekend at Bear Creek Lake Park in Lakewood, Colorado: a 100K, 50 Mile and 50K on Saturday, and a Half Marathon on Sunday, all built from laps of the same singletrack loop around the park. The race markets itself as a good first ultra: fast by trail standards and not overly technical, with the whole field starting and finishing at one beach on Big Soda Lake.

The Bear Chase began in 2010 at Bear Creek Lake Park. Flooding has forced the Start/Finish to move three times since. In 2013 the park itself was flooded and the original Start/Finish sat under water, so that year's 100K ran a flatter, faster 10.3-mile alternate loop with more pavement instead of the usual course. The current Start/Finish, at Big Soda Lake Beach, leaves the Mount Carbon climb out of the short Blue Course used to open the 50K, though 50K runners still climb it twice on their two Orange Course laps.

Getting in

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

Lottery
No aravaiparunning.com
Lottery opens
not checked yet
Lottery draw
not checked yet
Field cap
not checked yet
Registration
UltraSignup aravaiparunning.com
Qualifying
not checked yet
Minimum age
not checked yet
Transfers
No aravaiparunning.com
Deferrals
not checked yet
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
not checked yet
Vehicles per runner
not checked yet
Pacers
not checked yet
Muling
not checked yet
Drop bags
not checked yet
Cupless
not checked yet
Course marking
not checked yet
Night running
not checked yet
Dogs
not checked yet
Headphones
not checked yet
Crew rules
not checked yet
Pacer rules
not checked yet
Drop bag rules
not checked yet
Cutoff philosophy
not checked yet
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.

3 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.

Written race report

Not Really A Time Machine, But Kind Of

Written race report · 2025
Written race report

Bear Chase 50k Race Report - Lyndsey B

Written race report · 2018
Official channel

The Bear Chase Race (official event page)

Official channel
All (3) Written race report (2) Official channel (1)

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.

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: 31 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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