Tenerife Bluetrail by UTMB® 2027

One day, someone had the idea of starting a trail from the seaside, climbing up to 3,555 meters above sea level to the top of an active volcano, and descending on the other side. Over 110 km. In April. And for more than 10 editions now, thousands of people have found it absolutely brilliant—which is precisely why so many of them show up on the start line 🏁. Welcome to Tenerife Bluetrail by UTMB 🌋.

Let’s talk about the island first, because Tenerife isn’t just an all-inclusive club destination of beaches and mojitos 🍸. Tenerife was born from a volcanic eruption in the Atlantic about twelve million years ago, and took its current shape after the merger of three smaller islands about three million years ago. And the result is the largest island in the Canaries, a piece of Africa under Spanish administration set down in the Atlantic, with a volcano in the middle that towers over everything. Teide, the boss 🫡. Its exceptional landscape and natural phenomena led UNESCO to list the site as a World Heritage Site in 2007. And the sea of clouds ☁️ might just be the craziest thing you’ll ever see on a race course in your life. It’s an exceptional natural phenomenon caused by the trade winds, which gently push clouds against the peaks and condense moisture between 600 and 1,800 meters above sea level. Above that, in the Teide National Park, higher-altitude winds—warmer and drier—prevent the clouds from rising. Concretely: at a certain point in the race, you look down and see an endless sea of white cotton, with peaks emerging like islands above the clouds 🏔️. It’s so beautiful you forget for ten seconds that you’ve got 80 km in your legs... Until your quads remind you a few hundred meters later 🦵.

Now let’s talk about what matters most: the race! The first edition of Tenerife Bluetrail dates back to 2011, and has been organized ever since by the Cabildo of Tenerife. It’s the highest-altitude race in Spain and the second in Europe. Over the years, the race has grown, built a solid reputation in the world of international trail running, and attracted runners from all corners of the planet 🌍. In 2024, it joined the UTMB World Series circuit, becoming the second Spanish event where runners can earn Running Stones to qualify for the UTMB in Chamonix 🚀. The terrain is a succession of settings that have nothing to do with one another and yet follow each other along the same course. This race lets you run among rocks and volcanic cones, climb through the rocky malpaíses 🪨, take a break to watch the sunrise and the island as a whole from the summit of Teide 🌄, then plunge down through pine forests and forests of laurel forest to reach the trails along the seaside on the north coast of Tenerife. The malpaíses (Spanish for “badlands”) are those solidified flows of black lava that look like a lunar surface. And you’re going to run on them in your trail shoes—not bad, right? In the dark for some of you, on top of that 🌙.

The formats on offer cover a wide, well-thought-out spectrum. The flagship event, the “Tenerife Bluetrail 110k,” is the full experience: 110 km and 6,250 m of positive elevation gain crossing the island from south to north through the Teide National Park. South to north. A full vertical traverse of the island, via the roof of Spain. 4 Running Stones at stake. The “Tenerife Bluetrail 82k” offers 82 km and 3,300 m D+, the version for those who still want to come back in a more or less presentable state. The “68k” offers 68 km and 3,600 m of D+. Careful: the elevation gain of the “68k” is higher than that of the “82k,” which really shows that the organizers have a very personal take on the idea of “shorter.” 😅 The “47k” with 2,600 m D+ is available solo or as a relay for two ✌️, the perfect format to convince someone who’s still hesitating. And the “24k” with 1,300 m of D+ is the ideal introduction to discover the terrain without mortgaging your knees for the next six months 🙃. The Vertical Night Challenge deserves a special mention: 6.5 km, 850 m of positive elevation gain, at night 🌙. A straight-up climb in Canary darkness, with the stars overhead—and there are lots of them, because a large part of the Teide National Park sits above the trade-wind thermal inversion, above the sea of clouds, making it one of the best astronomical observation sites in the world 🔭. You do a VK at night under a starry sky listed as world astronomical heritage 🌌. You could almost think you’re in an ad for a luxury watch ⭐.

The HQ for this whole beautiful adventure is Puerto de la Cruz, the coastal city on the north coast of the island, with the finish line on Martiánez beach. You start at a volcano, cross a lunar landscape, climb into the clouds, and finish with your feet in the sand with the Atlantic in front of you 🏖️. If anyone had an argument against the Canaries being the ideal place to organize a trail race, we still haven’t found it 🤫.

If Teide is calling you, you might as well not overthink it! 😄