Leadville Trail 100

Demand

4 out of 5

How much it asks

Worth

2 out of 5

Whether the ticket is worth it

Leadville, Colorado, United States

Turquoise Lake and Mount Massive. Course-adjacent, not a Life Time still. Jeffrey Beall / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

Scorecard · is it worth it?

People look this up. The scores are the take. Famous is not a mountain destination.

The card

Leadville is the race people name when they mean 'I did something hard in Colorado' and the course mountain runners name when they mean 'that is not what we meant.' We score it because the question arrives every season, and because skip is a score, not a silence.

Demand is 4. Starting at 10,200 feet and climbing Hope Pass twice at 12,600 feet will still take people apart, and the 30-hour cutoff is a real clock. What it is not is a mountain-running demand: the Leadville Trail 100 is substantially jeep road and dirt road, out and back, with one famous pass as the alpine alibi. Technicality is a 2. Vertical is a 3. Altitude is a 5, and altitude is why the race keeps its reputation among people who do not look at surfaces.

Worth is 2 because the weekend is a poor use of a Colorado flight. You pay a Life Time fee, stay in a town that knows how to host a circus, and spend most of the day on a surface you could have trained on at home if home has a dirt road. Hope Pass is worth seeing. It is not worth 90 miles of boulevard. High Lonesome, Ouray, and Hardrock are in the same mountain range family and are actual mountain courses.

Finishers earn their buckles in thin air. This is not a hall of fame for famous names. Organization confidence is medium: professionally staged and publicly documented, and also a product line. If the buckle is the point, be honest that the buckle is the point. If the mountains are the point, skip.

Who it is for

Runners who specifically want the Leadville buckle, a high-altitude road-ish 100, or a first 100 where the hard part is air, not rock.

Who should skip

Anyone flying to Colorado for mountain running. If you can get to Leadville, you can get to a better course.

Gate

Format: Out-and-back, 30-hour cutoff. Life Time lottery (Dec window for the following August).
Cutoff: 30 hoursleadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-06 (repo record)
Lottery: Yes
Entry: Lotteryleadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Qualifier required: Not yet sourcedleadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Other requirements: Alternate lottery-bypass paths: Silver Rush 50 / Leadville Marathon / Austin Rattler coins; Camp+Entry; Coaching+Entry; charity; Life Time member priority - not a hard prior-finish gate for LT100 lottery entry.leadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Registration opens: 2026-12-01leadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Registration closes: 2026-12-15leadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Draw: RD unpublishedleadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Results notified: January 2027leadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-07
Last draw: Not yet sourced.
Bib economy: WSER qualifierwser.orgretrieved 2026-09-06 (repo record)
Entry fee: $495leadvilleraceseries.comretrieved 2026-09-06 (repo record)

Official site ↗Didn't get in?Leadville vs High Lonesome: Worth 2 versus Worth 5

Elevation

Tap or hover for miles, clock, and aidft

Dark from 19:59 to 06:18 local. No split grid; shading uses start time and clock only.

Bottom ticks are aid. Longest gap 15.5 mi.

Course line from official GPX. Dots are aid. Tap or hover for mile, elevation, and clock.

Hardest stretch

Hardest stretch: Twin Lakes to Hope Pass, 2,683 ft in 5.1 mi.

Segment gains from the course elev profile.

From	To	Mi	Gain	Loss
Start	Carter Summit	10.617.1 km	1,137 ft347 m	584 ft178 m
Carter Summit	Turquoise Dam	9.915.9 km	204 ft62 m	1,017 ft310 m
Turquoise Dam	Outward Bound	5.58.9 km	84 ft26 m	437 ft133 m
Outward Bound	Half Pipe	5.89.3 km	330 ft101 m	75 ft23 m
Half Pipe	Twin Lakes	8.513.7 km	945 ft288 m	1,487 ft453 m
Twin Lakes	Hope Pass	5.18.2 km	2,683 ft818 m	45 ft14 m
Hope Pass	Winfield	6.810.9 km	1,055 ft322 m	2,698 ft822 m
Winfield	Hope Pass in	6.810.9 km	2,666 ft813 m	1,128 ft344 m
Hope Pass in	Twin Lakes in	5.08 km	47 ft14 m	2,576 ft785 m
Twin Lakes in	Half Pipe in	8.613.8 km	1,479 ft451 m	938 ft286 m
Half Pipe in	Outward Bound in	5.79.2 km	79 ft24 m	335 ft102 m
Outward Bound in	Turquoise Dam in	5.99.5 km	482 ft147 m	103 ft31 m
Turquoise Dam in	Finish	15.524.9 km	1,402 ft427 m	1,173 ft358 m

Start: 10,144 ft3,092 m
Finish: 10,144 ft3,092 m
Net: 0 ft0 m
Longest climb: 3,330 ft1,015 m
Above 10,000 ft: 41 mi66 km

Start and finish are within 400 ft. Treat net as a loop.

Weekend

Official handbook facts

Start: 04:00
Crew: 26, 29.6, 40.3, 64, 74.9, 78.3 mi
Drop bags: 20.5, 26, 31.8, 40.3, 52.2 mi
Pacer from: 64 mi
Tracker: Open
Course file: Open

Printable cutoff card

Leadville Trail 100 Run (2026 schedule for reference) · retrieved 2026-09-06 (repo record)

Field

Last editions · 100M scored distance

Field evidence: who showed up, who finished, how long. DNF is that evidence, not a difficulty score. Public results, scored distance only.

2026

Official live hub: Overall 656 / Still racing 391 / DNF 265 (391+265=656). Four of the 391 chip times are over the 30-hour cutoff (30:19:30–30:42:21); counts follow the posted table.

Starters: 656
Finishers: 391
DNF: 40%
Win: 15:47:23
Median: 28:03:51

2025