Here is a list of all the athletes who made the cut this year for the race. We will have everyone up on our athlete gallery shortly after we verify selection. Congratulations to all our athletes! Don’t see yourself on this list and applied? Please reach out.

PRO:

ADVENTURE:

CHALLENGE:

For athletes who did not make goal in the air on the last task of the 2025 Global Rescue XRedRocks but still powered on by foot for many things got pretty wet and cold as overdevelopment got pretty serious and the rain at times was torrential. Stephen Guyette, who won task one And two in the Pro Division and then threw his reserve on task 3 in particular raced incredibly hard, running over 17 miles through at times heavy rain. Cal Neff in the Challenge Division did over a marathon! When our retrieve crew caught up with Stephen well after dark he was well on his way towards hypothermia. So now we have to warn for cougars, bears, rattlesnakes, dust devils, altitude, hypoxia, badgers AND hypothermia! Good lord Utah brings it all!

A day after the race ended Ben Walker, who has raced in every edition of the XRedRocks and has been on our task committee since the beginning had this to say about this years event:

“I’m sitting at work today reflecting on this year’s race.  My words can’t do it justice, but an event of this intensity brings new perspective.

It’s impossible to capture a favorite moment, but on day 4 I sank out and had to climb up a plateau to tag the third TP.  As I ascended, the terrain increased in angle until I was climbing through several cliff bands.  It started raining with thunder and lightning all around as I pulled through several 5th class sections of rock.  When I finally reached the top I started running and immediately kicked a cactus.  I yanked it out with the typical pain as the barbs pull through the skin.  After successful cactus removal I took a quick look at live tracking and saw that I might be able to catch a fellow competitor.  The race was on and I ran through rain and mud for an hour in an attempt to improve my result for the day by 0.5 points.

Experiences like this are totally normal in the race but are freakishly rare, impossible even, in everyday life.  I’m not sure these experiences are fun (type 2 maybe?), but they are special.  And when it’s over these experiences serve as highlights in my year and make the typical problems and stressors easier to overcome.

This year I also had the opportunity to share a house with Gavin which provided a glimpse behind the scenes.  The passion and amount of work that goes into organizing this event is incredible.  Thank you to everyone who works so hard to push this sport forward and provide a forum where we can come together with like minded fools, to push ourselves to the limit and occasionally beyond what we thought we were capable of.”

It took several hours to get everyone back to base for our annual awards shindig and big feed consisting of pork baby back ribs, tri-tip steak, chicken drumsticks, sausage, mac and cheese, scalloped potatoes and salad. We’ve come a LONG ways since year one when we had potato chips and plastic awards! Shout out to Cal Breed (Orbix Hot Glass) for making the amazing hand-blown glass awards again this year. They are stunning.

All the results can be found here. In the Challenge Division we had lots of new faces who are definitely going to be hard to beat next year in Adventure:

In the Adventure Division we had our first female winner in the history of the race! Sarah Crosier CRUSHED and will be fun to watch in Pro next year:

In the Pro Division we had a pretty extraordinary finish to things. Stephen Guyette had it pretty locked up going into day 3 but then threw his reserve (and still finished the task on foot!) but he still had a shot at the podium going into the last day…if he could win. He gave it everything he had (see aforementioned 17 mile rally in the dirt) but in the end David Chen and his buddy Jens Glatthard (who were both 2nd and 3rd on task 1 and 2 both days) snuck the overall out from under him. Congratulations to ALL our participants, whether you got on the podium or not. You can be incredibly proud of your effort, training and most of all – have a totally safe race. This was one for the ages.

Day four of the race brought an action-packed finish- some fantastic flying and some really hard miles on foot. With another tricky forecast that predicted a lot of cloud and considerable overdevelopment later in the day the task committee decided to hitch up yet again to head to another launch up at Wales, a site we’ve used quite a few times in the Red Rocks Wide Open but never for the XRedRocks. We dropped all the athletes off just outside of town (population 338). The road to launch is 5.2 miles and about 2500′ of elevation gain but most of the athletes tried to take short cuts up through the scree with varying success. If we judge success by loss of skin on legs, the winner way Taylor Grafton.

Professional ultra runner Cal Neff in Challenge got to launch first (he almost beat me, and I was driving!) and just carried in the direction of goal in Nephi to the north along the escarpment. Not long after the rest of the field started arriving but with a fully gray sky and only little tiny bits of sun popping along course line everyone wisely took their time getting into the air. Sometime during every week of the Global Rescue XRedRocks I throw a very real warning into the morning briefing that tends to make our visiting friends from overseas a bit nervous. When on foot in this part of Utah you’ve got a pretty decent chance of coming across bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions and other critters that could negatively impact your day if you’re not careful. But I’ve yet to warn people of badgers. But that’s exactly what Cal ran across (literally). Turn the volume up and check this out:

Finally a hole in the sky opened up and launch got a bit of sun on it and some of the bolder pilots in the group gave it a go straight away, recognizing the atmosphere was very unstable and wouldn’t require much sun for thermals to pop. Some were a little too early and bombed but as soon as a couple started climbing above launch the rest of athletes scrambled quickly to get in the air. Those who moved fast and climbed fast were treated to fast flying all the way to goal, close to 40 km. In the Adventure Division Moon Choi would have won the day if not for landing at the wrong goal (he had plenty of height to tag the correct one but made a forgivable mistake by not wanted to disturb a football game), and 7 athletes eventually made it all the way in. In Challenge 5 athletes made it in, lead by Eric Wustrow. Excellent flying skills were required to make it in tricky weather and huge congratulations are in order! All results for every day and overall can be found here.

Unfortunately for the Pros they had a harder task which first required tagging two big cylinders to the south before flying north to Mt Nebu and then goal in Nephi and shade and then rain made progress back to the north impossible. We later heard stories of 17+ mile runs both down in the valley and up in the high terrain before the task deadline at 5 pm, worthy dedication! David Harrington won the day after a fine display of great, fast tactical flying and hard bashing on the ground to stay ahead of David Chen and Jens Glatthard who incredibly were 2nd and 3rd on day 1 and 2 as well!

Here’s some pics compliments of Ben Horton. A final blog post will cover the awards evening and will be up shortly. This 5th edition of the Global Rescue XRedRocks was another amazing four days of big adventures in incredible southern Utah and we thank all of the participants, sponsors, and the generous town of Monroe for another truly amazing race.

With deteriorating and dynamic weather today after two nearly perfect weather days (and a huge task yesterday) the task committee decided on using yet another launch (Monroe Peak) for a short task in all Divisions. We took all the athletes up to Monroe mid through a really surreal kind of apocalyptic drive through what was the lower 48’s largest burn this summer, which was only controlled a few weeks ago. Most of the mountain is black as charcoal, but little areas of aspens ripe with fall color survived and already there are signs of new life sprouting. Most athletes stuck to the road up to launch, but many took worthy short cuts and some of our Challenge athletes made a terrific move and just launched lower down and flew the entire task to goal in one go. Stephen Guyette, who won the first two tasks handily in Pro had a crazy wing blow out before attempting to top land at Cove, threw his reserve, packed up and COMPLETED the task on foot! We might have left a bit of distance on the table today, but better to have a safe task, give our athletes a bit of a break and get everyone home safety. All photos Ben Horton the media guru!

Our task committee took a look at the weather last night and collectively decided it was time to go big. For the Pros a 103 km task was set from the Koosharem valley up onto the Fish Lake High top and all way to Castle Dale, but on the way they have to top land on the escarpment at the east end of the plateau, something we’ve looked at for years but never had the weather to support. Our Adventure crew has the same start but their goal is just a little shorter in Emery and our Challenge group has an awesome task down to land on the shores of Fish Lake, a beautiful challenging cross country flight up and over the Fish Lake high top where the fall colors are ablaze.

Our first three Adventure athletes (John Kear won the day just before Lee Patzer and Sarah Crosier, who crushed once again in 3rd place. She’ll have a comfortable overall lead going into day three tomorrow) have just made goal in Emery at 1445 and are reporting that it was ON like Donkey Kong. It’s Richard Pumpington out there folks, things are moving fast. Tune into the Live Tracking to watch all the action.

Meanwhile in Pro goal we await our first arrivals. Currently Stephen Guyette who won day 1 is WAY out front. Can he maintain his lead?

The Pros had to top land around Poverty ridge before relaunching and carrying on to Cove before flying to goal at the Monroe LZ, while the Adventure Division athletes just had to make it back to Monroe hopefully in one go. Several of our Challenge athletes beat their own PB’s by flying in one go to their goal near Marysville.

Official results aren’t in yet, but in Challenge it looks like Kristian Nilsson, in Adventure another one of our Colorado Crushers Sarah Crosier won in Adventure and in Pro this year’s XLost in Idaho winner Stephen Guyette just squeaked in ahead of David Chen and Jens Glatthard.

Congrats to everyone in goal and go get some rest, tomorrow we’re going BIG!

Follow along on or our Instagram Channel, and all live tracking on the live link. Photos Ben Horton

With yet another stellar forecast the task committee decided to keep things a little less aggressive on the final day with the hopes that we could get everyone back in decent time for a nice closing ceremony, some good food and a good sleep. All divisions would start the day at Monroe Mid and make their way to launch, about 7 miles up the road and couple thousand feet of vertical. Athletes could launch anywhere, that was up to them, but nearly all trudged up through the bountiful fall colors to Monroe Peak, where they would then hopefully fly all the way to goal. For Challenge goal was at the Love’s truck stop in Salina, 45 km to the north. Adventure had to get all the way to the town of Sigurd, a big stretch of 78 km through the air; and Pro all the way to the Manti airfield, 95km from launch. Conditions on launch turned out trickier than expected with cross, gusty winds, but most pilots were able to get off and get underway. The day was also more stable than we expected and several pilots unfortunately didn’t get very far. Patience once again ruled the day and once tall and away many pilots made good time of flying up to Salina, but the I-70 boneyard suck hole that has proven over and over to be a really tough place to pass once again ate pilots like a kid eats jelly beans. Fully 60% of the pilots landed in the vicinity of Salina. The Adventure pilots who arrived early set off on a solid pace north on foot, only to have pilots who took a lot more time by topping off every climb fly over their heads and sail all the way into goal. The same was true for the Pros. Tanguy Renoud-Goud came into the day tied for second place with his Niviuk Teammate Tim Rochas and was comfortably out in front and tall heading into the I-70 abyss and unfortunately it sucked him down to the ground. Race leaded Jared Scheid also landed, but he smartly side-hill landed on a little spine above town, walked up no more than 100 meters, waited for a cycle and launched. It took a solid 45 minutes to get out, but he finally did and flew into goal in 6th place, just one point in front of Tim Rochas, who placed second on the final day. All the results of each day and the overall can be found here.

This year we had 25 athletes in the Challenge Division, which was handily won by Robert Barlow. The Challenge Division is a really exciting addition to the race and we see it as a springboard for creating a strong hike and fly racing scene in North America. These are our future Pros! Hats off to all our Challenge athletes who trained so hard this year and made such great decisions. Can’t wait to see you next year in the Adventure Division!

It didn’t seem possible to send our athletes into a more special place than we did yesterday, but today the task committee might have sent the benchmark for unbeatable beauty. We haven’t been to Mt Edna since year 1. It’s one the highest peak in Southern Utah (nearly 12,000′) and right now is ABLAZE with fall colors. The daily wrap-up film is quite literally mind blowing. Catch all the action on our instagram channel (@xredrocks), but here’s how it went down: We drove the pilots to within 1’200 vertical feet to the summit where they made short order of the hike to the Peak of Mt Edna. It was still early, before 11 am, but thermals were already creating up the south bowl and athletes didn’t delay a second- BOOM, they were in the air, and quickly climbing. The task had the Pro and Adventure athletes walking or flying up the ridge to Delano peak (over 12,000′), and then a short flight down to near Junction where they would top land in a beautiful meadow, walk downhill a short distance to the Junction launch and then get back into the sky to get to goal directly for Adventure and up the Tushars to tag a couple turn points (the farthest in the southern Pahvants). The flying was mostly straightforward, with staying under our 18,000′ airspace (and dealing with hypoxia and cole) one of the biggest challenges. Several of our Pro pilots did in fact break airspace even though they did everything they could to stay below. It was just an epic day. Stories of walking through a Dr. Seuss magical wonderland, waterfalls, Elk and Moose and just some terrific, and at times technical flying ruled the day. Our Challenge athletes were tasked with walking from Edna to near Delano and back before flying, which while a beautiful hike along a gorgeous spine at altitude was a thrill, we really gave them a tougher task than the Pros! But they made short work of it, launched into the Stratosphere and several were able to fly all the way to goal. BRAVO!

Since the inception of the Global Rescue XRedRocks four years ago it has always been our dream to send our athletes out into the “Swell”, the desert to East of the Wasatch Plateau that encompasses some of Utah’s most incredible and famous natural wonders. Think Capital Reef, Goblin Valley, Escalante, and Canyonlands. It was Edward Abbey’s favorite playground and anyone who’s read Desert Solitaire knows how special a place this vast area is. At the end of day 1 we began with a forecast that looked really on the edge of reasonable wind to head east with significantly strong west winds above 12,000′, but by the next morning the forecasts had really backed off and the task committee felt like we should give it a try. We set the Adventure and Pro goal at the same place on the I-70 corridor at nothing more than a view point called “Salt Wash.” It probably doesn’t sound too thrilling, but have a look at some of these images captured by Matt Beechinor, who flew the task with the competitors and decide for yourself. Many pilots got very close to our airspace limit of 17,999 feet, but Sam Inouye ACTUALLY hit 17,999′! One foot short of a zero for the day! Well played sir! It was just a stunning, magnificent day, capped off with 6 pilots (including one of our Adventure pilots Patrick Cannon) all arriving goal within seconds of one another and a whole bunch more very smiling people coming in short order afterwards. It was probably the most brilliant task in the history of the Global Rescue XRedRocks.

This is the 4th year of the Global Rescue XRedRocks and we haven’t had a forecast like we do this week since the first year. Today the task committee called a challenging task headed north from Cove for all three Divisions. It’s stable and a touch windy and going to be really tricky but we’ve already got athletes in goal in Challenge, who were moving so fast on the ground the trackers thought they were flying! Adventure and Pro athletes have just launched for the second time and are trying to fly all the way to their goals in Salina (Adventure) and Manti (Pro). Tomorrow we’re headed out for a BIG ONE into the desert, Friday looks like a banger for a big triangle and then Saturday looks like we’ll get another big one. It’s going to be a wild week! Follow all the action on our instagram channel (@xredrocks). Live Tracking is here.