Var Verdon Trail Canyon

The Var Verdon Trail Canyon is a 60-kilometer race with 2,800 meters of elevation gain held in Aiguines, in the Var department, on the shores of the Grand Canyon du Verdon, one of Europe's most spectacular natural sites. The Verdon, a torrent of strikingly emerald-green waters, has carved over millennia vertiginous gorges reaching 700 meters in depth over more than 25 kilometers in length, creating the largest canyon in Europe. Aiguines, a village perched at 823 meters altitude on the canyon's left bank, with its Renaissance castle topped by glazed-tile roofs, offers a breathtaking natural balcony over this mineral abyss.

The Var Verdon Trail Canyon course offers an unforgettable crossing of this titanic landscape. Trails run along the canyon's vertiginous ridges, sending the gaze plummeting straight down to the turquoise waters of the Verdon several hundred meters below. Runners cross the limestone plateaus of Haute-Provence, covered in lavender, thyme, and downy oaks, before descending into the gorges via spectacular trails carved into the cliff face. The Lac de Sainte-Croix, a vast expanse of turquoise-blue water created by the Verdon dam, marks the entrance to the gorges and offers panoramas of unreal beauty where Provence meets the Pre-Alps.

With 2,800 meters of elevation gain over 60 kilometers, the Var Verdon Trail Canyon is a very high-level event demanding excellent physical fitness and strong technical skills. Climbs from the canyon floor to the summit plateaus are long, steep, and grueling, on stony trails sometimes exposed to the void. Descents into the canyon are technical and demand absolute concentration, with passages along narrow ledges, stairs carved into the rock, and sections equipped with handrails. Exposure to the Provençal sun and heat reflecting off the limestone cliffs amplify temperatures, making hydration management critical.

The Grand Canyon du Verdon is a site of major geological and historical importance. Its white and grey limestone cliffs, 200 million years old, tell the story of an ancient tropical sea whose sediments slowly transformed into rock. Exploration of the canyon only dates back to the early 20th century, when speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel first descended the course of the Verdon in 1905, discovering a mineral world until then unknown. The Route des Crêtes and the Corniche Sublime, panoramic roads built in the 1940s, opened this grandiose landscape to the public and made the Verdon one of France's most visited natural destinations.

The Var Verdon Trail Canyon is one of the most spectacular trails in France, a race that confronts runners with the raw power of geology and the wild beauty of Haute-Provence. Its 60 kilometers along and within the largest canyon in Europe offer an incomparable trail experience, between vertigo and wonder. Aid stations celebrate the Provençal and Var terroir: Haute-Provence olive oil, Banon cheese, lavender honey, tapenade, fougasse bread, and Provence rosé wines. For trail runners from around the world, running on the ridges of the Verdon means contemplating one of the greatest spectacles nature offers to athletes — a theater of stone and water where every stride is an act of faith between sky and abyss.