Monte Rosa Walserwaeg by UTMB®

There are races you simply run, and there are races you truly experience. The Monte Rosa Walserwaeg by UTMB clearly belongs to the latter category! And if you don’t know this event yet, strap in because you’re about to fall in love with a corner of the Alps you probably never imagined 🧐.

Let’s start with the name, because it deserves a pause: "Monte Rosa Walserwaeg". It sounds like a Harry Potter spell, right? 🪄 Yet behind these sounds lies a fascinating history 🤓. In this exact zone of the Valle d'Aosta, a true crossroads of peoples and cultures, the population mainly speaks Italian 🇮🇹, but also a unique variant of the South German dialect 🇩🇪, very close to Swiss German in its most archaic form: the language walser. And who are the Walser, you may wonder? 🤔 The word "Walser" is the contraction of "Walliser", meaning "Valaisan". A large part of these mountain shepherds and farmers left the Upper Valais for other Alpine regions, especially southward into the Valley of Aosta 🏞️. In short, the first ultrarunners in history, so strong they decided to settle in the most inhospitable places of the Alps... where even the Romans had given up, calling these mountains the "terra maledicta" (literally the cursed land 😅). Today, the trails you’ll tread in July are exactly the same ones these mountaineers used centuries ago 🛘. As for scenery? It’s the Matterhorn on one side, the Mont Rose on the other, and quite simply the second highest peak in Western Europe 🤯. Not to mention that even the aid stations offer a panoramic view at 4,000 meters above sea level 😍.

When it comes to distances, the event is really designed for everyone... Well, for people who love pushing themselves in beautiful places 🤪. The menu is generous: there’s the "Regina Margherita Trail" of 15 km and 650 mD+, perfect to warm up and get back to the hotel early enough to enjoy the Valdôtain dinner 🤤. Next comes the "Walserwaeg Trail", an impressive loop of 43 km with about 3 200 m of elevation, offering an incredible panorama over the massif of the Mont Rose, including the Gabiet dam, the wild valley of Valdobbia 🍃 and the characteristic villages of Alpenzu 🏡. For those who want to truly commit, the "Monte Rosa Trail" boasts 82 km and 6 300 mD+. And for the real adventurers, the folks who wonder if happiness might be somewhere between the aching legs and sunrise over a pass 😂, there are the "Sentieri dei valdostani" : an extraordinary itinerary of 120 km with 8 300 m of elevation 🗺️, guiding you on a journey to the two majestic 4,000-meter summits: the Matterhorn and Mont Rose. The route starts in Aosta and winds through the Valley of Saint-Barthélemy, the Val d'Ayas, the historic Graines Castle and a succession of Alpine lakes before reaching Gressoney-Saint-Jean 💪.

What makes this event truly unique is the itineraries designed to awe you and grant exclusive access to less-traveled trails 😎, with spectacular views of the Lyskam glacier, the Matterhorn and the imposing Mont Rose 🌹. But it’s also an immersion into a culture still alive, in villages where that old dialect walser is still heard 🙉, in a Valley of Aosta that offers far more than cheeses (though the cheeses, honestly, are worth a detour 🧀). Running the MRWW (or Monte Rosa Walserwaeg), is, therefore, retracing eight centuries of human history with the power of calves, traversing villages where time seems suspended, and returning home with something more than a medal: a story to tell 🤗.

So, which will you choose? The sensible 15 km option or the big plunge into the 120 km? ⛰️