If you’re really into downhill routes, this is the race for you. It starts at the very highest point on the Gravelly Range Road which is Monument Ridge at 9,587 feet. It then drops, over 50 kilometers, to the Madison River and the finish line at Varney Bridge. This is …
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If you’re really into downhill routes, this is the race for you. It starts at the very highest point on the Gravelly Range Road which is Monument Ridge at 9,587 feet. It then drops, over 50 kilometers, to the Madison River and the finish line at Varney Bridge. This is a race to experience because you get to see so many incredible viewsheds along the way. It’s like what the view from heaven surely must look like.
By definition, an Ultra is any race longer than 26.2 miles or 42 kilometers. Most Ultras are either nice round numbers such as 50K, 100K, 50 Miles, 100 Miles and even 24 hours, or they are a specific distance between two points, e.g. the Badwater Ultra is 135 miles which is the distance from the lowest point in Death Valley to the highest point (original route) at Mount Whitney in the contiguous United States.
That’s most Ultras – a nice round number or a specific distance between two unique and iconic spots on a map. Because Montana is so awesome and has so much fantastic public land (Thank you Teddy Roosevelt!), we are doubly blessed. We are going to do both in one route.
The Madison River is already famous among fly fishing aficionados. It’s a blue ribbon trout stream. This means it’s a fast flowing, cold water, not too deep, high elevation river with incredible rainbow, brown, and cut throat trout. People from around the world come to Southwest Montana for the sole purpose of casting a dry fly onto its waters.
Monument Ridge is the highest point on the Gravelly Range Road. It is 9,587 feet above the oceans. When all the ups and downs are calculated, it’s about 6,000 net vertical feet above the Madison River.
Here’s the cool part. The road distance between the banks of the Madison River and Monument Ridge?
50 kilometers.
The Madison Ultra 50 will start on Monument Ridge on top of the Gravelly Range. The finish line is at Varney Bridge on the Madison River. It’s a 50K downhill.
How cool is that?
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