The Whitefish Trail Blazer race is looking to blaze to new heights this year thanks to stronger community partnerships benefiting not just the Whitefish Legacy Partners, but other nonprofits as well.  

Last year, the Whitefish Legacy Partners – the nonprofit which manages the Whitefish Trail system – revamped their annual Legacy Run, changing the name to the Whitefish Trail Blazer, and adjusting the 50k course to start and end at Whitefish Mountain Resort instead of Depot Park.  

The new 50k course ditches pavement and embraces Big Mountain’s mountainous terrain for more vertical gains and single-track miles.  

“We wanted to involve the mountain more, and to be all-natural surface,” said Cody Moore, race director. “So last year was a lot of change. Hopefully this year we see some of the fruit of the labor. More energy, more hype.”  

The hype seems to be working, also boosted by improved branding and more social outreach.  

Participation numbers for this year’s 50k on Saturday, Oct. 4 are up – 190 people are registered already, a jump from last year’s 134 participants.  

The Trail Blazer 50k has a permit for 400 people, and the goal is to reach that number in the next few years, said Jedd Sankar-Gorton, WLP programs director.  

The largest participation for the event, however, comes from the half marathon, 10k+, 5k+, and the family fun run, to be held on Sunday, Oct. 5 this year. Starting at Stillwater Mountain Lodge in the Beaver Lakes area, Sunday’s races encourage people of all ages and abilities to get on the trail during a beautiful time of the year. 

A record number of participants across all races could help make the Trail Blazer the Legacy Partners’ biggest fundraiser of the year for the first time, Sankar-Gorton said.  

Beyond the participants, sponsorships are building the event’s success and future growth.  

“This is our strongest sponsorship year, ever,” Sankar-Gorton said. “Not just financially – they are actual partnerships.” 

OrthoRehab, for one, has brought both enthusiasm and the expertise of its physical therapists. 

“OrthoRehab is stoked,” Sankar-Gorton said. “Their whole team is seeing how we can make it work for both sides, making their own social media, coming to training series runs to help educate, and they’ll be at the event helping.”  

The Whitefish Trail Blazer also has a presenting sponsor for the first time, the Flathead Running Company. The specialty running store opened in Kalispell this spring and has since spearheaded sponsorships for running events across the valley, including the Whitefish Marathon.  

“They jumped at the opportunity to partner with us, because we put this on as a community event,” Sankar-Gorton said. “As much as it's a race, it’s a conversation story – and [Flathead Running Company] was really excited about those values. They didn’t just want to put their money to the biggest race possible – they want a story that they can help grow.”  

The history of the races is embedded in the Legacy Partner’s conservation story, first starting in 2010 to celebrate and showcase the Beaver to Skyles easement, and then expanding in 2019 with the addition of the 50k race, to showcase the Haskill Basin area. 

In the future, another conservation milestone might just call for the addition of another race to celebrate, Sankar-Gorton implied.  

NEW FOR this year, organizers of the Trail Blazer have collaborated with the valley’s other trail running races, Foys to Blacktail and Le Grizz, to create The Flathead Race Series.  

The Flathead Race Series offers fun awards for runners who compete in each event’s longest race, which in addition to the Trail Blazer 50k, includes a marathon from Blacktail Mountain to Herron Park in June, and the classic Le Grizz 50 miler, held in Polebridge the second week of October.  

Each Flathead race supports a nonprofit – the Legacy Partners, Foys to Blacktail Trails, and the Glacier Institute.  

“The idea is that the rising tide lifts all ships,” Moore said. “We want to get people excited about our race, but we also just want to get people excited about running on the trails in the valley in general.” 

To learn more and to register for the Trail Blazer, see www.whitefishlegacy.org/whitefish-trail-blazer.