RUN THE RED DESERT
A race for a wild Wyoming landscape
Saturday, September 27, 2025
25K | 50K
Run the Red is dedicated to celebrating and conserving the Red Desert — a rugged, vast, and storied landscape.
Courses
25K | 50K
Run the Red offers two distinct challenges — 25K and 50K — both designed to expose runners to the many shades and shapes of the Red Desert.
Location
SOUTH PASS CITY, WY | NORTHERN RED DESERT
Run the Red begins in historic South Pass City, WY and takes runners through the Northern Red Desert — a maze of buttes, canyons, badlands, and miles of open country.
Schedule
WYOMING PUBLIC LANDS DAY
Taking place on Wyoming Public Lands Day — always the fourth Saturday in September — Run the Red embodies “the importance of public lands” in Wyoming.
Travel
WHERE TO STAY | HOW TO GET HERE
The Northern Red Desert is a wild, open space. Getting and staying here is a small adventure in and of itself — it’s worth it, though. The nearest gas station is located in Lander, about 35 miles north or Farson, about 45 miles south.
Unfenced
A film by Patagonia about Run the Red Desert
The Red Desert in southwest Wyoming is the largest unfenced area in the continental United States. But pressure from the oil and gas lobby is currently shaping how the Bureau of Land Management administers this unique landscape. In order to raise awareness about this threatened ecosystem, several Wyoming conservation groups have banded together to organize a trail race that brings runners, local stakeholders and concerned citizens together to experience this place and see exactly what is at stake.
A Topspin Studios film. Directed and produced by Javier Fernandez & Greg Mionske.
Read Patagonia’s companion article about Run The Red
“On a grey day in September of 2019, with clouds sitting heavy overhead and a sleety mix falling, more than 200 people gathered in the ghost town of South Pass City, about an hour south of Lander and the granite turrets of the Wind River range. The town, once a thriving mining hub and territorial capital home to more than 20 saloons, sits at 7,440 feet on the northern boundary of the Red Desert, among aspens that on this day were ablaze in gold.”
“I am inviting all of us to take part in educating ourselves on what’s happening.”
Clare Gallagher, Patagonia Trail Running Ambassador
“Run the Red was borne out of the want to expose more people to the Red Desert.”
