The 2026 edition of The Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB begins its four-day festival in Auburn on Thursday with the 25K, and climaxes on Saturday morning when the 100K rolls out of the Auburn Overlook with six Golden Tickets for Western States 100 on the line. Canyons retains its rare Super Golden Ticket Race status: the top three men and top three women earn automatic entries to this summer's Western States, a bump up from the single-ticket-per-gender allocation at most qualifier races. The result is the deepest elite ultra-trail field assembled on the Western States Trail at this stage of the season, and a 62-mile route that previews the Cal Street section that defines the back half of Western States itself.
The men's field is headlined by Ludovic Pommeret, Hayden Hawks, Anthony Costa and Tim Tollefson — three generations of US and European long-distance strength converging on the same start list. Pommeret is the defending UTMB champion and has openly targeted the Canyons Golden Ticket as his preferred entry route into Western States this year, a change from his prior plan of using a sub-elite invitation. Hawks, who has finished Western States multiple times, returns to Canyons after a two-year gap with a training block that his coach has described as "the best he's ever had". Costa, representing the new wave of French trail racers, ran 7:19 at the Transvulcania in May 2025 and is the one unknown in the men's line-up.
The women's field arguably has more depth than the men's. Emily Hawgood, the defending 2025 Canyons 100K champion and 2024 Western States podium finisher, is back to defend. She lines up alongside Fu-Zhao Xiang, who was second at Western States in 2025 and remains China's highest-profile trail athlete; Riley Brady, whose second-place finish at last year's Canyons earned a Western States Golden Ticket and an eventual top-ten at Squaw; and Caroline Chaverot, the French veteran returning from a three-year injury-enforced absence. Six women on the start list have podium credentials at UTMB, Western States or the Hardrock 100, a concentration that Canyons organisers say is the deepest women's ultra field ever assembled on American soil in April.
The course itself is unchanged from last year: 62 miles with 14,300 feet of climbing, 15,900 feet of descent, and the signature eight-mile descent into Michigan Bluff that acts as the pinch-point on ticket-hunting strategies. Snowpack on the high points of the course has finally dropped below the operating threshold after a wetter-than-usual March, and race organisers confirmed on Wednesday evening that the full 62-mile route will be used — last year a 6K diversion around a washout on the Cal Street section briefly threatened to shorten the race. The Western States Trail section below Michigan Bluff dries out quickly, and aid station crews have been pre-positioning since Tuesday.
Weather is the final variable. Local forecasts show a cool front arriving Thursday evening with overnight lows in Auburn of 3C and Saturday race-morning temperatures starting around 7C before climbing to a mid-afternoon high in the low 20s. That is a markedly more forgiving profile than the 32C highs that defined the 2024 Canyons 100K and forced four Golden-Ticket contenders into the medical tent before Michigan Bluff. The men's course record of 8:19:19, set by Francesco Puppi in 2025, is within range for the fastest half-dozen men if the weather holds; the women's record of 9:19:11, set by Hawgood last year, looks harder to touch but is, on paper, possible for Hawgood herself. The 100K starts at 5 a.m. on Saturday, with UTMB Live streaming the coverage, and the finish line at Auburn Overlook is open to the public from noon.