Moab 240 Evacuated: How Floods Stranded 70 in Canyonlands
About 70 runners and volunteers in Utah's Moab 240 ultramarathon were evacuated on Sunday, Oct. 11, after floodwaters cut off their route in Canyonlands National Park.
They had been stranded since Oct. 10. They spent the night at a race aid station, a staffed rest stop with shelter and supplies, after the storm flooded roadways in San Juan County. Vehicles could not reach them until the coordinated evacuation the next day. ABC News
Race host Destination Trail confirmed all runners were safe and accounted for. The organizer said all runners were either back at race headquarters or in a vehicle on the way back. The Guardian
The Moab 240 had been scheduled for Oct. 9-13, 2026. Organizers canceled the rest of the 240-mile event because of dangerous weather conditions. The Salt Lake Tribune
In its cancellation notice, Destination Trail cited aid station structures blowing away, falling trees, wind, rain, freezing temperatures and worse conditions expected overnight. The combination made movement on exposed sections of the course untenable and left fixed aid points compromised.
The San Juan County sheriff's office coordinated relief with race organizers. Shuttles and personnel were sent to pick up runners and volunteers once access allowed. The Guardian
The flooding came from the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel. The system was forecast to bring heavy winds and rain to northern Mexico and southern California. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning, an alert for flooding that is happening or about to happen, in parts of San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties due to Rachel.
By Monday, Oct. 12, the remnants were still moving across Utah. A flood watch, an alert for conditions that could lead to flooding, remained in effect through Monday afternoon across most of the state.
The broader context here is operational. Long-course ultras disperse small groups across tens of miles of remote trail, much like ships spread across a wide sea, with aid stations as the only shelter, communications nodes and vehicle access points. When roads flood and structures fail at the same time, the safety margin narrows quickly. Cancellation stops forward movement, but extraction still depends on the same road network that the weather has already degraded.
Looking at what this means for event planning, the sequence in San Juan County points to two pressure points. One is overnight shelter capacity when runners cannot move forward or back. The other is transport redundancy, or backup rides, when primary access roads are impassable. In this case, runners held at a station overnight while organizers and the sheriff's office assembled shuttles. That holding period worked. It also shows why race decisions in desert canyon country turn less on conditions at the start line and more on access at the farthest aid station.
