Severe Weather Forces Organizers to Call Off the Moab 240

Destination Trail called off the 2026 Moab 240 on Sunday afternoon, two days into a race scheduled to run until Tuesday, after the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel brought flooding, sleet and high winds across much of the 241.8-mile course in southeast Utah. Every runner, pacer and volunteer was eventually accounted for, although about 70 of them first had to wait out a long night at the Bridger Jack aid station before anyone could reach them.

A Night at Bridger Jack

Heavy rain on Saturday pushed Cottonwood Creek, a few miles past Bridger Jack in San Juan County, up to flood level, and the organizers judged it “unsafe to cross.” Runners who reached the water turned around and walked back to the station, and crews were warned not to try driving in, since the road out could no longer be trusted. According to Moab Sun News, Destination Trail sent in a truck loaded with shelters, heaters, propane and food, and the group spent the night in heated tents. Runner Brian Hamilton wrote on Facebook that people feared the tents would blow away, and some wrapped themselves in foil emergency bags.

Early on Sunday a helicopter flew over the area looking for a safe way out, KSL reported. Hamilton and others walked four to five miles on Sunday morning to an ATV shuttle set up by the sheriff’s office, then rode a school bus back to Moab. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office told ABC News it had worked with the organizers to bring out runners who could not safely leave on their own, and the last of the Bridger Jack group reached race headquarters by bus in the early afternoon.

Trees Down in the La Sal Mountains

Farther along, in the La Sal Mountains and around Geyser Pass, organizers received reports of “aid station structures blowing away, trees falling down, wind, rain, freezing temps,” and at about 2 p.m. Sunday they announced that “the weather has become too dangerous to safely continue.” Runners still on the trail were told to stop at their next aid station and wait for a crew or a shuttle. The National Weather Service recorded a gust of 51 mph (82 km/h) at the Monticello airport around 1 p.m.

Tandem BASE Moab, pacing one runner, needed 14 hours to get through a 31-mile stretch toward Geyser Pass and wrote afterward: “We spent the day running and climbing recently downed trees while watching them fall all around us.” Andrea Christensen, who paced a friend before leaving the course at mile 115, told KSL that the mud on Shea Mountain on Saturday was slick enough to scare her, and that after seeing lightning on the climb she said to her runner, “If I was in charge of this race, I would be canceling it, feels so dangerous right now.” That stretch crosses the burn scar left by the Babylon Fire, where there is little tree cover left.

Two Races Into the Triple Crown

Aaron Kubala was out in front when the race was stopped, and his Strava activity, first reported by Run247, showed 214.63 miles covered in 56 hours and 17 minutes. On Instagram he wrote that the night into the La Sals had been “pure chaos,” with his back locking up and “possible hypothermia.” An earlier update from Destination Trail had Ashley Paulson running second overall and leading the women.

For both of them, Moab was the final race in Destination Trail’s Triple Crown of 200s, after the Tahoe 200 in June and the Bigfoot 200 in August. Kubala won the Tahoe 200 and then the Bigfoot 200 in 47:21:11. Paulson, who has already broken the women’s 100-mile world record and the 100-mile treadmill record this year, was second woman at Tahoe and finished Bigfoot in 71:06:41. Last year, 22 runners completed all three races, and Kilian Korth set the fastest combined time on record at 156:30:20.

Destination Trail had not said publicly by Monday how a canceled final leg will be treated for this year’s Triple Crown, a question that matters to everyone who had already finished Tahoe and Bigfoot. Heavy snow in the mountains forced a reroute partway through the 2018 edition, a year after Courtney Dauwalter won the first edition outright in 57:55:13. More rain is forecast for Moab through Tuesday, with a flood warning in place for streams and dry washes below the region’s burn scars.