Escarpment Trail Run

Escarpment Trail Run The Escarpment Trail Run was founded by Dick Vincent in 1977 and traverses the Escarpment Trail over Limited to 200 runners, qualifying standards apply.

The 35th Annual Escarpment Trail Run is a highly technical 30 kilometer trail run in the North Catskill Mountains. With 10,000 feet of elevation change, this event is for Mountain Goats Only.

Does running Escarpment Trail Run set you up for a solid trail ultra? If you look at 2026 ETR and Twisted Branch 100k Tr...
09/12/2026

Does running Escarpment Trail Run set you up for a solid trail ultra? If you look at 2026 ETR and Twisted Branch 100k Trail Run it certainly looks that way. This year 3 of the top 5 at Twisted Branch also ran Escarpment. Coincidence?

At Twisted Branch 2026 Kyle Curtis finished second after running ETR in 3:31. Matthias Kirchner followed in 4th after doing ETR in 3:44. Mike Welden was 5th at TB after completing ETR in 4:26.

According to Mike Welden, who has finished ETR 6 times and Twisted Branch 8, the connection between ETR and TB100 is an interesting one. No overlap whatsoever in the terrain or distance. But many runners have had both on the calendar over the years and he thinks ETR is a perfectly timed long training effort in the Twisted Branch build up.

To add to the “coincidence,” in 2018 when Jim Sweeney set a long standing Twisted Branch course record he also ran Escarpment. Scotie Jacobs, the only 11 time Twisted Branch finisher, has finished ETR 4 of those years.

If you’ve done both ETR and Twisted Branch in the same year, add it to the comments.

While many of you know the quiet Brit Stewart Dutfield because he has completed Escarpment 27 times and manages the ETR ...
09/04/2026

While many of you know the quiet Brit Stewart Dutfield because he has completed Escarpment 27 times and manages the ETR archives, his running resume well exceeds his modest demeanor.

Stewart started running ultras when he was a teen, completing three 60 and one 100 mile events in Britain in 1971-74. He ran his first road ultra at the elite Two Bridges in 1983, completing 36 miles in 4:04:14 for 17th place.

1987 was Stewart’s banner year. At Pikes Peak he finished 12th overall and earned an age group buckle. He set a PR of 2:31:58 at the London Marathon and an impressive record at Overlook Overload, running 35.8 miles up and down Overlook Mt. in Woodstock in 6 hours. He took the fall off from work to travel to the Himalayas, where he won the first Everest Marathon. Reaching 17k in elevation, the race went from Everest Base Camp to Namche Bazar, with (as Stewart puts it) a surprising amount of climb.

In 1989 Stewart finished ETR in under 3 hours, clocking 2:59:30 for 5th place. The next year at the JFK 50 Stewart finished 8th in 6:45:50. In 1995 at age 40, he finished second at the Chuckanut 50K.

In the early 2000s, Stewart took a break from ultras to move east and start a family. But the ultra itch didn’t stay hidden for long. 40 years after his first 100, Stewart completed the mountainous Cascade Crest 100. He has continued to do ultras (125 of them to date) as he has cruised into his 70s, completing the 53 mile Highland Fling in Scotland a week ago…a month after completing his 27th Escarpment Trail Run.

Photo credits:
2: Joan Hutchinson
5: Graham Macindoe
7: Rob Howard
8: Glenn Tachiyama

Back in the early years of Escarpment Trail Run, there were few women who took on the challenge. In 1981, the 5th runnin...
08/28/2026

Back in the early years of Escarpment Trail Run, there were few women who took on the challenge. In 1981, the 5th running of ETR, there were 8 females—more than doubling the total number of women who had finished.

That year Sandy Arvidson completed the run in second place in 4:30:35. She borrowed a red f***y water pack from race director Dick Vincent because there were few aid stations.

Sandy ran again in 1982 (5:09:20). In 2012 Sandy (67 years old) toed the line for the third time, proudly wearing her 1981 Bill Rodger’s singlet and accompanied by her three children—Joshua, Jesse and Erin.

The Arvidson family has 13 finishes—Sandy with 3, Joshua and Jesse with 2 each and Erin with 6. Joshua has the family PR of 3:50:08 and Erin has the only Arvidson 100 mile shirt!

A big shout out to our Escarpment Trail Run family!This year’s race was tough. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too humid. ...
08/22/2026

A big shout out to our Escarpment Trail Run family!

This year’s race was tough. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too humid. But for some reason many suffered from cramping, maybe due to electrolyte/salt imbalances, which led to slower than expected times.

One of these runners was Matt Munro, an ETR first timer from Colorado Springs, CO. He was hoping for a solid run at Escarpment. Heck, he finished Manitou’s Revenge in 2023–Escarpment is just a piece of that! Anyway, coming from CO, Matt was used to dry heat. He was drinking what he thought was enough and feeling strong in the early miles. However, going up Blackhead he started to cramp and ended up on the ground when his muscles seized up. It was awful. Multiple people stopped to see what was wrong, one or two handed him electrolytes or salt tablets/chews and some reached out and literally helped him up. Matt finished upright–but significantly slower than expected.

Matt is very grateful to the ETR family. He didn’t get to thank the runners who helped him out, so wants to extend a huge thank you to those who took the time to literally get him on his feet again.

A family is the group of people we can usually count on to pick us up when we are down–not often physically, but sometimes. Using that definition, Escarpment runners are a family, with over 8,000 members!

PS: Matt is planning to come back and crush it next year!

This year 61 women crossed the finish line at the Escarpment Trail Run, the most women to finish in one year. At 23.8%, ...
08/16/2026

This year 61 women crossed the finish line at the Escarpment Trail Run, the most women to finish in one year. At 23.8%, women made up the largest percentage of the field to date. To put that into perspective, last year 39 females finished. Historically, it was 1988, or the 12th running of ETR, when the 61st different woman completed the course. This year almost half of the female field was between 40 and 49, meaning most of the female participants were born around the time ETR started.

Every woman who finished this year had her own story, but one in particular stands out. Gillian Haines-Sharpe, who won the race in 1993, returned to ETR for the 5th time in 2026, running 5:19:08 at 64 years young. Gillian’s time in 1993 was a course record that stood until 1998 and remains the 10th fastest female time ever run on the course. Hope yo see her next year for her 100 mile shirt run.

Congrats to all the women who finished this year! To each of you who have gone out on a trail run when it was a bit intimidating, to those special ladies who are balancing family with finishing that advanced degree at age 50+, to those who support their own daughters’ exploring running in the new world where women are winning races outright–kudos to you all. I am so proud of each and every one of you.

After falling in love with the race at 13 and running it in 3:31 at 18, Luke Tighe, 21, became the youngest winner of Es...
08/09/2026

After falling in love with the race at 13 and running it in 3:31 at 18, Luke Tighe, 21, became the youngest winner of Escarpment Trail Run. How he did it is a great story.

A rising senior in college, Luke spent this summer doing an internship in Schenectady so ETR fit into his plans. His training for the race wasn’t, as he tells it, so much a plan as it was him making it up as he went along. About 2 weeks before the race, he knew he was in good shape but didn’t feel prepared for the climbing and descending. To have a shot at winning this race, he knew he would need the climbing ability that he has shown in previous races. So he found a 0.34 mi / 300ft hill in the Plotter Kill Nature Preserve on a map and headed over for 10 times up the hill at threshold pace. The first time he did this workout he was sore until the day before he did the workout again. It was just enough to get his legs back into mountain running shape just in time for the race. Ah, to be 21.

Luke used that uphill speed well to win ETR. Luke, Chris Mateer and Gregory Ahlswede reached the Base of Blackhead together. Luke wanted to avoid having to run down the others on Stoppel or being caught on the technical descent in the last 4 miles so he hammered the climb and the others couldn’t respond. A quick split comparison shows why–except for Lee Berube and Joseph Carpenter, no one has run up Blackhead as fast as Luke’s 15:42.

Luke thinks that the ability to navigate technical descents strongly correlates to experience on the trails, and feels he has years to go before he can compete with the athletes who have been significantly under 3 hours at ETR. He says, “running this race gives you a lot of respect for the skill level of the athletes who have pushed down into the 2:40s and still made it to the line in one piece.”. It will be cool to see what he can do at Escarpment as he improves his downhill chops!

Good luck to Luke at his first half marathon and the JFK 50 this fall!

Introducing the 2026 Escarpment Trail Run Mountain Royalty!Mountain Royalty is determined by the aggregate time on the 3...
08/04/2026

Introducing the 2026 Escarpment Trail Run Mountain Royalty!

Mountain Royalty is determined by the aggregate time on the 3 ETR mountain ascents—Windham, Blackhead and Stoppel. The crazy timing guys bring equipment into 5 spots along the trail (including the top of Blackhead) to record these split times, which can be viewed in the results by clicking a runner’s last name.

Mountain Royalty is given to the fastest hill climber in each gender classification—Queen of the Mountain (female), King of the Mountain (male) and Monarch of the Mountain (nonbinary).

Congratulations to Haley Heinrich, Luke Tighe and Ava Bynum for their climbing skills!

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