Nearly 100 miles into a 240-mile race in Moab, around 130 runners were told they could not safely continue because severe weather had turned the course dangerous. Some had already gone more than 200 miles before the storm forced the event to stop.
The race began Friday and drew runners from around the world, but the conditions changed fast enough to halt one of the hardest events in trail running. Organizers said all runners were accounted for after the weather-related disruption.
Brian Jones of Spanish Fork said the opening day felt routine, hot and sunny, the kind of October weather that can make Moab feel more like summer than fall. He said the race was his brother’s idea and that the event carries his name, the Stephen Jones Memorial Run, after Stephen Jones dreamed up the notion of a 200-miler in Utah and the race director carried it forward after his death 10 years ago.
The storm hit later with the kind of force that can change a mountain race in minutes. Jones described 30-mph wind gusts, torrential rain and flash floods that pushed runners back from the course, a sharp break from the calm start and a reminder of how quickly the desert can turn.
Matt Van Horn said he was awakened by the station captain after runners began returning from farther out on the course, having run into flash floods. He said there were easily 100 runners at Bridger Jack, with some estimating about 130 gathered around fires trying to stay warm, and that it was cold, windy and heavy rain for most of the night.
Van Horn and Madeline Brady chose a different path. He said they ran 15 miles out to the nearest road to catch a ride back to town, after waiting through the worst of the weather at Bridger Jack, a remote stop between Moab and Monticello near the edge of Canyonlands National Park and about 15 miles from the nearest paved road.
The race is part of the Triple Crown of 200s run by Destination Trail, a series that also includes the Tahoe 200 in Lake Tahoe, California, and the Bigfoot 200 in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. That pedigree helps explain why the stoppage drew attention, but the scene at Bridger Jack showed the race’s central fact more plainly: even among elite ultrarunners, the weather gets the final word.
