How Beast of Big Creek proves trail running’s future belongs to local races with big dreams

What You Need To Know

Go west, climb mountains

SAM: “But, you know, I don’t think people understand that it’s running trails that makes you stronger,” Alexi Pappas says as she drops an empty clam shell onto a growing pile on her plate. She pushes a stray strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand. A collage of multicolored hair clips crest her head like a whimsical crown, and her squarish Marshall headphones hang close around her neck. She’s giving off hints of Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State, if that character could kick your ass at a race and walk off the finish line to take a business call.

We’re on a covered deck that bumps against US 101 in the tiny waterfront town of Hoodsport, WA, at the final Media Crew dinner for The Beast of Big Creek skyrace. The torrent of rain from earlier in the day has almost evaporated in the afternoon sun, and a creek behind us burbles mountain runoff from that rain out to the Hood Canal.

The Beast, the only North American stop on the Merrell Skyrunner World Series, was yesterday, and we’re capping off a frankly insane weekend with oysters, geoduck (it’s pronounced GOOEY-duck, if you’d like to avoid my embarrassment at saying “what??” six times before figuring out the server meant the oversized clams that are a local delicacy), and seafood curry. Three of us, including Alexi, ran the Skyrace, a burly 15-mile out-and-back that climbs 5,400 feet in 6 miles from the Big Creek Campground in Olympic National Forest and then retraces back down. I’m sore; I can tell Alexi is sore; and Tyler, a writer from Ultrarunner, says he’s sore, but I don’t believe him.

Anyway, we’re in Hoodsport along with 3 other writers (who ran the Forest Loop Race that morning), Brandon and Taylor from Merrell PR, and my incredible wife (who joined me through the magic of travel points and who Merrell has been wonderful to) because Merrell brought us out to cover the races and the product summit they organized to coincide with the weekend. The whole Merrell trail team, along with the shoe design team, is in Hoodsport to race, talk shoe design, and spend time together. But the center point of this was always the race.

It’s running… but in the sky?

SAM: Skyrunning is a specific kind of trail running that’s loosely defined by altitude (over 2,000 meters), steepness (more than a 30% grade), and technicality. I say this is loosely defined because the Beast of Big Creek summits Mt. Ellinor at just 5,944ft (1,812 meters). That’s not to say this race doesn’t live up to its name. There’s a vertical kilometer in the last 3 miles of the climb, most of that stunningly above treeline on highly technical rock fields. It’s beautiful and brutal in equal parts, and I loved every minute of it.

The race is organized by Rock Candy Running and directed by Mathias and Trixy Eichler. As Mathias, with his ever-present smile flickering across his face, stood on a stepladder at the start of the race to talk etiquette, you could almost breathe how excited he was to be doing this. “Right of way?” he jovially blurts, “Who has right of way? Those going up or going down?” Shouts from the racers affirm that down has it. Mathias moves on, thanking his wife, Trixy, for her equal share and gushing about her art. She was the one to draw the skull and crossed pine boughs that serve as one of the race logos.

“But the bell!” Jon from Merrell shouts from outside the corral, “Tell us about the bell!”

“Ah, the bell. It is,” Mathias states almost sheepishly, his accent perhaps thickening, “from a little town you might have heard of, called Chamonix. We ring it when we finish.”

It’s these personal flourishes that remind me why local trail races like this one are so good, even if they get propelled to a larger stage by international competition and big footwear companies. After the race, after I definitely forget to ring the bell, we all gather for a cookout, s’mores, and the award ceremony.

Mathias and Trixy’s daughter hands out locally sourced prize bags to each of the top ten finishers. They hold candles, non-alcoholic beer, and other useful items made by craftspeople from along the Hood Canal. The first-place finishers balance these bags with comically large checks with the Euro sign scratched over the US dollar sign, since the prize money is awarded in Euros. They were sourced, Mathias says, from a friend of his at a local bank, and they did the best they could. It’s a moment encapsulated here, with world-class athletes juggling joke checks and carefully curated bags emblazoned with a runner’s skull. They’ve caught their huge smiles from Mathias, and I have too.

The gear to get you going

SAM: The day before the race, we got to spend some time with the Merrell team. We’re focused on two shoes for the weekend (at least for us in the media): the recently released MTL SpeedArc Peak, Merrell’s entry into the carbon-plated trail racer space; and the MTL Agility Sky, a Spring ‘27 release built expressly for skyracing with lots of feedback from Merrell Skyrunner Morgan Elliot. We put miles in both, along with a few other shoes from Merrell’s trail line, like the MTL Skyfire 2 and the Agility Peak 6.

We had ample time to talk to Merrell’s shoe design team to break down why they chose these shoes and how they get them into boxes and then into the hands of the public. I run in and write about plenty of shoes, but I’m more or less blind to what goes into building a shoe from scratch. The Merrell team lives and breathes it. They walked us through every facet of the shoe that we (and they) could think to discuss. Nothing was too minute a subject. No materials were unworthy of microscopic consideration.

The stiff ridge structure on the tongue of the MTL Speed Arc Peak? That’s encapsulated EVA for structure at low weight (and they’ll probably modify it if you have the shoe and the tongue has been bothering you). The full-length rock plate in the Agility Sky? It’s nylon, but it was a fiber (not carbon fiber) plate that didn’t hold up to testing.

Jon, the head of the design team, in an endearingly unsubtle airing of a shoe review pet peeve, even talked through finer points of terminology. Did you know that grip (the ability of a shoe to find purchase on a slippery surface) was a separate design element from traction (the ability of a shoe to claw at a loose surface)? I didn’t, and I’ve been selling or reviewing shoes on and off for 15 years.

The passion for what they do radiates off these lovely people who design shoes for the biggest hiking shoe brand in the world. Sure, their knowledge runs deeply through the ins and outs of what makes a shoe, but it’s the passion and personality they bring that’s so remarkable. I find myself always enthralled by people who pour themselves into their craft, as Drew, the lead designer, mentions how he used to call shoe designers at major companies when he was a kid just to pick their brains about the whys and hows of a shoe they made. I know this is someone who pours himself into what he loves.

Later, as we talk about a shared fondness for reading, he mentions that Wendell Berry is on his to-read list and I can’t help but think about how Drew’s love of design and his job echo the importance Berry puts on good work in one of his Agrarian Essays:

“If it is true that we are living souls and morally free, then all of us are artists… and if we see that everything we make or do cannot help but have an everlasting significance for ourselves, for others, and for the world, then we see why some religious teachers have understood work as a form of prayer.”

The feeling I get from talking to these people who make shoes for Merrell is that what they make is significant, and they are constantly honing the quality of their craft so that what they give people is everything they can make it. Is this all just a bit too philosophically deep for molded plastic you strap to your feet to traipse through mud? Potentially, but I think those who work like they are praying deserve recognition.

The people you meet on the mountain

SAM: We’ve also had the delight of spending time with much of the Merrell team that’s here. Alexi Pappas, Olympian, author, record-holder, business owner, ambassador of sparkle, has been kind enough to do several video calls with us in the lead-up to the race, along with Coree Woltering, the Ice Age and Pinhoti Trail FKT holder, Merrell trail team lead, inclusion advocate, king of genuine kindness. In these calls we’ve plumbed the depths of their experience and tried to apply it to training for a race format none of us are familiar with. Alexi joined us on the ride from the airport, and they’ve been at every event along the way.

Here, the day before the race, we get to talk to Morgan Elliot about how direct the feedback loop is between him and the shoe designers. His first run in the prototype of the MTL Agility Sky before the one we hold in our hands went poorly. The fiber rock plate saved weight, but it couldn’t hold up to the beating he gave it, and the sole started to delaminate. He texted Jon and Drew as soon as he got off the trail, “Guys, these shoes suck.” He explained exactly how, and they’ve swapped to a nylon plate in this version. Slightly heavier, but better protection. We’ll review the shoe when it comes out, but some of Morgan’s first words to me as I finished the race in that new version of the shoe covers it: “Man, how great is that shoe?”

These are all just snapshots from a full weekend, and much of the time – dinners on piers, van rides, overflowing breakfasts, saunas and cold plunges – I’ve left out, but as I look back, I can’t help but think what a stellar representation this whole event has been for the possibility that lies in the future of trail running.

I think anyone active in their own local trail races knows about the wonderful uniqueness of the race directors and the races they run. There are rituals, and fun aid stations, and a sense of deep community in the best local races. Beast of Big Creek was fully unique in and of itself, and what Mathias and Trixy have created is a gem of a local race. By propelling this race to the national stage as part of the Skyrunner World Series, Merrell has helped to share this uniqueness and highlight how something as simple as running up and back down a mountain can be significant in people’s lives.

It’s not just that Morgan Elliott’s course record is an incredible effort to witness; everyone has their own personal triumphs in running in the woods. Another member of the media team, Becca, ran the Forest Loop race that Sunday. It was her first race in seven years, after a hip replacement. She took first, and the shine on her face as she crossed the finish line was not just the sparkle from Alexi Pappas’ new sweatproof glitter (although there was plenty of that). It was the glinting of personal triumph in those Washington State woods.

Trails are our future

SAM: Of course Alexi was right when she said trails make us stronger. The us there is the global “us,” the runners and race directors and volunteers and brands and families of all those people who fall head over heels for this thing we call “running.”

Trails are our future: the place where community, storytelling, competition, and nature distill to become a source of belonging and personal betterment. There’s something there for everyone, and as we see where trail running is heading from this current boom, I can only hope it’s towards more events like this, where brands that care work to lift great local races and the people who run them.

You can check out the entire Merrell trail running collection (sans Alexi-powered glitter) at the button below.