Berghaus has confirmed that it will sponsor the Dragon’s Back Race™, a five day adventure race that will traverse the mountains of Wales in September. The Dragon’s Back Race™ enjoys near mythical status in the adventure racing community, both because it has only been held once before (in 1992) and because it proved to be such a tough challenge.

How exciting! The finishers’ trophies have just been ordered! They are going to be hand crafted bronze replicas of the original trophies. Pictured above is the original finishers trophy – don’t worry, the final ones won’t glow red!

We are very happy to be working with Joe Faulkner and his team at NAV4 for the provision of our exclusive Mountain Running Essentials™ course. This course is has been specifically designed for Dragon’s Back Race™ and Great Lakeland 3Day™ competitors but is also highly relevant to mountain marathon competitors and mountain runners.

On an overcast evening in September 1992, two weary but determined runners toiled up steep limestone cliffs to reach the ruins of Carreg Cennen castle in South Wales and complete the inaugural Dragon’s Back Race™ .

Most of the western World was probably sitting on the sofa, sleeping off the excesses of Christmas today. Except, of course, the Dragon's Back Race™ competitors who would have been out running, clocking up the miles in preparation for most epic mountain race of 2012.

During November Race Director, Shane Ohly, spent a week recce'ing the majority of the Dragon's Back Race route. This selection of photos and video should give competitors an insight into the terrain and scenery they can expect. Amazingly, apart from some low cloud, he didn't experience a drop of rain during his trip.

With nearly 30 entry applications in 24 hours it has quickly become apparent that we needed to tightened up the vetting procedure.

In due course we plan to publish a comprehensive article about the event history but in the meantime there was some excellent reporting from the event in 1992 that will give you a great perspective on the event.

The joy of planning a five day, 200 mile race. This collection of 1:50,000 Ordnancy Survey maps has been laminated so that the route can be clearly marked, discussed easily and annotated... just not a very practical size for taking out on the hill being nearly 4m long!