2026 BEAR 100 PREVIEW: A NEW FINISH IN UTAH AND ZACHARY GARNER BACK ON THE START LIST
The 2026 Bear 100 starts at 6:00 a.m. on Friday, September 25, in Logan, Utah, and it will finish in Utah rather than Idaho. The new finish line is at Conestoga Ranch in Garden City, Utah, about seven miles from the old finish at Fish Haven, and roughly a quarter of the course has been redrawn to get there.
The Course Change
The move was forced rather than chosen. The previous finish venue on the Bear Lake shore is being developed and was no longer available, and the race directors, Cody and Bethany Draper, said finding open land around the increasingly popular lake had become difficult.
The first 75 miles of the point-to-point route are largely unchanged, and the start at Hyrum Gibbons Mount Logan Park is the same. The early miles now use the North Syncline singletrack rather than the South Syncline doubletrack, which the organizers say gives runners a better view of sunrise over Logan Canyon.
The main changes come after the Beaver Mountain aid station. Instead of heading north into Idaho, runners turn south on the Stump Hollow singletrack toward Peter Sinks. Three aid stations, Gibson Basin, Beaver Creek and Ranger Dip, are gone, replaced by Peter Sinks and Burnt Fork, and the steep section after the old Ranger Dip aid, which the organizers themselves call nasty, has been removed.
The net effect is about 10 miles of doubletrack swapped for 10 miles of singletrack, a quarter mile less pavement, and roughly 350 feet less climbing. Total elevation gain still exceeds 20,000 feet, and the organizers expect finishing times to be similar or slightly faster. The entire race now takes place in Utah.
The Field
About 350 runners are on the entrant list after a lottery that drew 886 applicants for 300 places. The strongest name on paper is Zachary Garner of Provo, who won the race in 2023 in 17:11:51, the course record, and who is listed with two previous Bear finishes.
Sidney Noble of Mount Vernon, Oregon, and Mike Sidic of Vancouver carry the highest performance rankings in the field, with Joshua Reddish of Pocatello and Ross Donahoo of Salt Lake City close behind. Leland Barker of Smithfield, Utah, who won the Wasatch Front 100 in 2001, is entered in the 60 to 69 age group with nine previous Bear finishes.
The women's entrants are led on ranking by Sarah Graves of Red Lodge, Montana, Sarah Clark of Mercer Island, Washington, and Deanna Doane of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with Alissa St Laurent of Alberta and Nora Rex of Boulder also near the top of the list.
The defending champions are Mike Cappi, who won in 2025 in 18:34:50, and Sarah Humble, who won the women's race in 21:12:16. Neither appears at the top of the entrant rankings. Jose Cruz, the 2024 winner in 19:55:23, raced the Wasatch Front 100 two weeks ago and finished second there.
The Records
Garner's 17:11:51 from 2023 is more than an hour faster than any other winning time in the race's history. The next-fastest is Jeff Browning's 18:28:48 from 2017, and the only other winning times under 19 hours are Cappi's in 2025 and Adam Loomis' 18:45:57 in 2021.
The women's record is the 20:25:49 that Careth Arnold of Great Britain ran in 2024. Kaci Lickteig's 20:27:57 from 2016 stood as the mark for eight years before that, and Kaytlyn Gerbin ran 20:45:48 in 2018.
Whether those records mean anything on the new route is an open question. With about 350 feet less climbing and 10 more miles of singletrack, the organizers expect times to be comparable, but the final 25 miles are unfamiliar to everyone in the field.
Conditions
The race is held in late September for the fall colors, with red maples and yellow aspens through the Bear River Range, and for the cool daytime temperatures. Nights are cold, and the organizers warn that a September storm hits race weekend often enough that the course has been modified twice in the race's history because of winter conditions.
There is no mandatory gear list, and the 36-hour cutoff applies. About 65 percent of the route is singletrack, with almost all of the remainder on dirt double-track.
What to Watch
The winners are crowned King and Queen of the Bear in honor of Old Ephraim, the grizzly whose grave sits a few miles off the course. This year they will also be the first to cross a finish line in Garden City. For the background on how the race grew into a fixture of the late-season calendar and a qualifier for both Hardrock and Western States, see our Bear 100 history.
Live tracking runs through OpenSplitTime from the 6:00 a.m. start.