Trans-RMNP Marathon

Colorado, US

Distance

27.3 mi

Vertical Gain

4,670 ft

Mostly dirt route starting at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center (west entrance), climbing the North Inlet Trail over Flattop Mountain, and descending to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center (east entrance).

The course covers a traverse of the park, moving through sub alpine, alpine, and riparian areas. Starting and ending at the visitor centers allows easy shuttling and gives the athlete claim to have covered the complete width of the park. The west side provides much more solitude than the busier east side. All of the park's large ungulates can be seen along this route.

I completed this route with Matt McDermit on 9/10/21. https://www.strava.com/activities/5938637149

GPS Track

Trans_Rocky_Marathon.gpx1.16 MB

FKTs

Standard route

Male

Unsupported
Jeff Albert				4h 51m 6s	2025-08-01
Harlan Grossman				5h 54m 47s	2025-07-05

Supported
Steven VanDenDriessche				6h 35m 23s	2023-09-23
Evan O'Toole				7h 17m 24s	2021-09-10

Comments

I'm going to be attempting this route next Saturday or Sunday (9/23 or 9/24), depending on which day has better weather.

There are some spots on the horse trails on the eastern half of the route that I have found somewhat difficult to navigate on my scouting runs, but I think those turns are committed to memory now, so hopefully there are no delays due to wrong turns.

My wife will be crewing me and meeting me near miles 18 and 24. Unfortunately, unless a crew person is willing to climb Flattop Mountain from the Bear Lake area, I don't think there is any earlier point that support can be provided.

Looks like it should be a great day on a really beautiful series of trails!

Follow-up on this:

Had great luck today with nice weather, no reroutes due to wildlife, and very few hikers on the Flattop descent. A wrong turn and lots of nausea threw me off my splits strategy around mile 21-22.

Still very happy with my time of 6:35:23. I'll upload the track to Strava tomorrow and make a submission.

Great route!

Awesome, I've been waiting for someone to best my time! Yes, the horse trails from Mill Creek down can be a bit confusing, but we did this route blind after only mapping it out online and I had no idea what to expect there. Congrats on the great run!

I'm really late seeing this response, oops!

Thanks for the kind words. It's a really great route that you guys mapped out.

I ran this route yesterday, 07/05/2025. (Beaver Meadows to Kauwuneeche). It was a great day out, and my elapsed time was 05:54:47. The route is varied and fun, and others should give it a go.

Planning on giving it a go unsupported this week!

Route: Trans-RMNP Marathon

FKTs

Comments