Monte Rosa Walserwaeg by UTMB® 2026

There are races you run, and there are races you live. The Monte Rosa Walserwaeg by UTMB clearly belongs to the second category! And if you don’t know this event yet, hang on, because you’re about to fall in love with a corner of the Alps you probably didn’t even suspect existed 🧐.

Let’s start with the name, because it’s worth dwelling on: "Monte Rosa Walserwaeg". Sounds like a Harry Potter spell, doesn’t it? 🪄 Yet behind those sounds lies a fascinating story 🤓. In this specific area of the Aosta Valley, a true crossroads of peoples and cultures, the population mainly speaks Italian 🇮🇹, but also a particular variant of the South German dialect 🇩🇪, very close to Swiss German in its most archaic form: the Walser language. And who are the Walser, you might ask? 🤔 The word "Walser" is a contraction of "Walliser", meaning "Valaisan". A good part of these mountain shepherds and farmers left the Upper Valais for other Alpine regions, notably south into the Aosta Valley 🏞️. In short, the first ultra-trail runners in history—so tough they decided to settle in the most inhospitable places in the Alps... where even the Romans had given up, calling these mountains "terra maledicta" (literally, the cursed land 😅). Today, the trails you’ll set foot on in July are exactly the ones those mountaineers used centuries ago 🛘. As for the scenery? We’re talking the Matterhorn on one side, the Monte Rosa on the other—none other than the second-highest summit in Western Europe 🤯. Safe to say even the aid stations give you a panoramic view at 4,000 meters above sea level 😍.

As for distances, the event is truly designed for everyone... well, for everyone who enjoys suffering in beautiful places 🤪. The menu is generous: there’s the "Regina Margherita Trail" at 15 km with 650 m D+, perfect for getting your legs going and making it back to the hotel early enough to enjoy dinner in the Aosta Valley 🤤. Next comes the "Walserwaeg Trail", an impressive loop of 43 km with around 3,200 m of elevation gain, offering an incredible panorama of the Monte Rosa massif, including the Gabiet dam, the wild valley of Valdobbiola 🍃, and the characteristic villages of Alpenzu 🏡. For those who really want to commit, the "Monte Rosa Trail" clocks in at 82 km and 6,300 m D+. And for true adventurers—the kind of people who wonder whether happiness might lie somewhere between sore muscles and sunrise on a mountain pass 😂—there are the "Valdôtains Trails": an extraordinary route of 120 km with 8,300 m of elevation gain 🗺️, guiding you on a journey toward two majestic 4,000 m peaks: the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa. The course starts in Aosta and winds through the Saint-Barthélemy valley, the Val d'Ayas, the historic castle of Graines, and a succession of Alpine lakes before reaching Gressoney-Saint-Jean 💪.

What makes this event truly unique are the routes designed to amaze you and give you exclusive access to little-used trails 😎, including breathtaking views of the Lyskamm glacier, the Matterhorn, and the imposing Monte Rosa massif 🌹. But it’s also a deep dive into a culture that’s still alive, in villages where people still speak that old Walser dialect that tourists never hear 🙉, in an Aosta Valley that offers much more than its cheeses (even though the cheeses—seriously—are well worth the detour 🧀). Running the MRWW (or Monte Rosa Walserwaeg) means tracing eight centuries of human history powered by your calves, passing through villages where time seems to have stood still, and heading home with something more than a medal: a story to tell 🤗.

So, what will you choose? The sensible 15 km outing or the big plunge into 120 km ? ⛰️