Badwater Ultramarathon

The Badwater Ultramarathon describes itself as "the world's toughest foot race". It is a 135-mile course starting at 279 feet below sea level in the Badwater Basin, in California's Death Valley, and ending at an elevation of 8360 feet at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mount Whitney. It takes place annually in mid-July, when the weather conditions are most extreme and temperatures can reach 130 °F . Consequently, very few people—even among ultramarathoners—are capable of finishing this grueling race.

Originally, the run was conceived as being between the lowest and the highest points in the contiguous United States: Badwater, Death Valley [−279 feet ] and Mt. Whitney's summit [14,505 feet ]. The two are only eighty miles apart on the map, but the land route between the two points is substantially longer, 146 miles , because of detours around lakebeds and over mountain ranges. Additionally, since the finish-line is 11 miles from the nearest trailhead, anyone who competes over the 146-mile race-distance must be capable of a total physical effort of 157 miles . Due to the two mountain ranges that must be crossed between Badwater and Whitney, the course's cumulative elevation gain exceeds 19,000 feet .

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