The 2026 Gorge Waterfalls 100K delivered one of the most decisive women's performances of the North American trail season, with Lotti Brinks taking the win in 9:06:23 — more than eight minutes under the previous course record. Jeshurun Small claimed the men's title in 8:07:29, falling roughly eight minutes short of Adam Peterman's 2025 course best but well clear of the chase pack. The race, held on Saturday 11 April around Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge, was the centrepiece of Daybreak Racing's weekend festival and a 2027 Western States 100 qualifier.
Brinks ran from the front for much of the day, extending her lead through the course's most technical middle miles as the chasing field negotiated the waterfall-heavy Eagle Creek and Oneonta canyon sections. Her eventual winning margin over American Liz Hogan, who finished in 9:58, was nearly an hour. Erin Moyer took third in 10:05 to round out a deep women's podium on a course that includes around 11,000 feet of climbing and an equal amount of descent over its 62-mile measured distance.
Small's men's race was tighter on paper than the finish-line gap suggested. An early lead group of half a dozen runners splintered on the climbs out of the gorge, and by the back half of the course Small had worked himself into a race of one. His 8:07:29 does not threaten Peterman's benchmark from last year, but it is well inside the historical winning range for the event and earned the top share of the $75,000 total prize purse that was awarded across the 100K, 50K and 30K distances.
The weekend also underlined the growing strength of the field at races that double as tickets into the lottery-intensive Western States 100. With the 2026 event's top-two finishers each earning Golden Ticket entries to Auburn in June, the Gorge result effectively reshapes the men's and women's starting lists for the year's most closely watched US ultramarathon. Brinks, in particular, enters the Western States conversation in the highest tier; her finishing time on the Gorge course would convert to one of the fastest 100K splits of any woman racing in the 2026 Western States field.
Beyond the top performances, the 2026 edition continued a trend of growing international entries at the Gorge. Canadian runners have been a fixture at the race for years, with Daybreak Racing reporting a record number of top-ten finishes across distances, and European entries were more visible than in any previous year. The combination of dramatic scenery, technical single-track and a fast-growing purse has pushed the Gorge Waterfalls 100K closer to a fixture on the international trail calendar, and Saturday's results reinforced the point.