The Madison River is already famous for fly fishing aficionados.  It’s a blue ribbon trout stream which means it’s a fast flowing, cold water, not too deep, high elevation river with incredible rainbow, brown, and cut throat trout.  People from around the world come to Southwest Montana for the sole purpose of casting a dry fly onto its waters. Monument Ridge is the highest point on the Gravelly Range Road.  It is 9,587 feet above the oceans. When all the ups and downs are calculated, there is around 6,060 net vertical feet difference between these two points.

The distance between the banks of the Madison River and Monument Ridge?

The Ultras will be on the same day – but start about two hours apart.  The Up runners will start around 5 or 6 AM. After they start, the Down runners will be shuttled to Monument Ridge and start around 7 or 8 AM. The route is entirely on a decent quality gravel road.  A regular car can travel on this road. In no way are these trail Ultras. There is basically no flat ground on the entire route. It’s either leaning or crazily going uphill or downhill. If you’re an Upper, there will be some downhill stretches, but not too many over the 50K.  If you’re a Downer the same thing holds in reverse.

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