On October 13, 29 runners began one of the most remote races in the world, the inaugural Snowman Race, organized by the Kingdom of Bhutan. The five-day, high-altitude stage race isn’t just a feat of endurance; its purpose is to highlight the dangers of climate change in the small Himalayan kingdom, which is sandwiched between two of the world’s biggest polluters: India and China.
Bhutan is a high-alpine country experiencing rapid change. Glaciers are melting, flooding valleys and destroying homes and villages. For context, Bhutan is roughly the size of Switzerland, or the states of Massachusetts and New Jersey combined.
“We’re not going to sit on our hands doing nothing,” says Lotay Tshering, prime minister of Bhutan. “We will fight climate change. Our protected areas are our lungs. Bhutan is one of only three countries that is carbon negative, along with Panama and Suriname.”
Participants will summit 17,946 feet, tracing the Snowman Trek that’s been completed by few people and typically takes 20 days to complete.Andy Cochrane
Snowman Race follows the famed Snowman Trek for 126 miles (203km), from the town of Gasa to the town of Chamkhar in northeastern Bhutan. The race courses through diverse terrain from jungles to fragile, high-altitude ecosystems to remote mountain villages. The Snowman Trek is arduous, typically taking adventurers three weeks to complete. But very few do. To put it in context, more people have summited Mount Everest.
Snowman Race in a Nutshell
The 29 ultrarunners of this year’s race comprised nine Bhutanese runners and 20 international athletes—from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, Tanzania, Switzerland, and the UK—including past winners of Marathon des Sables in Morocco, a Seven Summits finisher, and multiple winners of prestigious 100-milers.