With a couple of days before registration closes on July 31, there were 573 people registered for the 2024 Emperor’s Challenge.
That’s well down from the 803 people who were registered for the race last year, and less than 3/5 full.
The race has struggled post-Covid. The last year before the pandemic, the race filled up in a matter of hours, but after the pandemic, the race has not hit the 1000 participant limit. “Obviously we knew post-Covid that it would take a bit to get back,” says Manda Maggs, who sits on the Emperor’s Challenge planning committee. “So I think the first year was about 600, the second year was 800 or so. This is our third year past Covid. I think we were really hoping to get up near that 1,000 participant mark. But this year, first off, right when we make the announcement in February or March, we were already in a level 4 drought. A lot of people were talking to us about our contingency for wildfires because it was such an issue last year with our evacuation. People definitely had some concerns there.”
But more than that, say Maggs, is lack of accommodations. “One of the biggest points of feedbacks that we’re getting from people is that there’s a significant portion of participants that would like to stay in hotel rooms. And there just aren’t any. There’s no Airbnbs with space. Even the campgrounds on the weekends are packed. This weekend just past had two weddings in town and the Geoparks tenth anniversary and it was full. So that’s been an issue. I think combined, those things definitely impacted our lower numbers this year.”
One of the other reasons could be that there are other races in the North. The Emperor’s Challenge used to be fairly unique in terms of races in the north, but in the last decade, more outdoor races and events have sprung up. Still, says Maggs, she’s not sure that all races are created equal. “I’ll admit that I’m not super well-versed in what everyone’s looking for in terms of a race, but I do think this one is unique in certain ways. In terms of community involvement and the views. You’re not going to get mountain views in Grande Prairie the same way you do on Mount Babcock. I think it just depends on what people are after. But we certainly get a lot of repeat participants, people that come year after year after year, which is great.”
After last year’s wildfires, says Maggs, this year the committee got additional insurance, just in case the race gets scrubbed, though that is looking less and less likely as the race day gets closes. “At the time that we were planning that kind of stuff, it looked like it was going to be really rough. We’ve been extremely lucky, I think, this summer in terms of smoke and in terms of wildfire impact. This year is not like last year. Having to leave your homes for seven or eight days last year was just very sudden. It was very unexpected and it scared a lot of people.”
This year, the race has an added level of complexity, as the Quintette Mine is in the process of restarting. “Conuma now has their Permitted Mining Area (PMA), and the race passes through it for that top half of the loop. So from the planning side of things, it’s been a little bit different because we’ve had to do close coordination with Conuma. When our volunteers go out to repaint the markers, we need to have a Conuma employee help us out with that. And they’ve been super good about it. Like they know it needs to be done. And then on the race day itself the volunteers who will be in the PMA—folks like the ATV club—will have to get their special on site safety training before they can be helping out. But Conuma has also helped us a lot with that, because the water station and anything that needs to be done within the PMA, they’re taking care of all of that. So it means less recruiting of volunteers for us. It’s super helpful.”
With a couple of days before registration closes on July 31, there were 573 people registered for the 2024 Emperor’s Challenge.
That’s well down from the 803 people who were registered for the race last year, and less than 3/5 full.
The race has struggled post-Covid. The last year before the pandemic, the race filled up in a matter of hours, but after the pandemic, the race has not hit the 1000 participant limit. “Obviously we knew post-Covid that it would take a bit to get back,” says Manda Maggs, who sits on the Emperor’s Challenge planning committee. “So I think the first year was about 600, the second year was 800 or so. This is our third year past Covid. I think we were really hoping to get up near that 1,000 participant mark. But this year, first off, right when we make the announcement in February or March, we were already in a level 4 drought. A lot of people were talking to us about our contingency for wildfires because it was such an issue last year with our evacuation. People definitely had some concerns there.”
But more than that, say Maggs, is lack of accommodations. “One of the biggest points of feedbacks that we’re getting from people is that there’s a significant portion of participants that would like to stay in hotel rooms. And there just aren’t any. There’s no Airbnbs with space. Even the campgrounds on the weekends are packed. This weekend just past had two weddings in town and the Geoparks tenth anniversary and it was full. So that’s been an issue. I think combined, those things definitely impacted our lower numbers this year.”
One of the other reasons could be that there are other races in the North. The Emperor’s Challenge used to be fairly unique in terms of races in the north, but in the last decade, more outdoor races and events have sprung up. Still, says Maggs, she’s not sure that all races are created equal. “I’ll admit that I’m not super well-versed in what everyone’s looking for in terms of a race, but I do think this one is unique in certain ways. In terms of community involvement and the views. You’re not going to get mountain views in Grande Prairie the same way you do on Mount Babcock. I think it just depends on what people are after. But we certainly get a lot of repeat participants, people that come year after year after year, which is great.”
After last year’s wildfires, says Maggs, this year the committee got additional insurance, just in case the race gets scrubbed, though that is looking less and less likely as the race day gets closes. “At the time that we were planning that kind of stuff, it looked like it was going to be really rough. We’ve been extremely lucky, I think, this summer in terms of smoke and in terms of wildfire impact. This year is not like last year. Having to leave your homes for seven or eight days last year was just very sudden. It was very unexpected and it scared a lot of people.”
This year, the race has an added level of complexity, as the Quintette Mine is in the process of restarting. “Conuma now has their Permitted Mining Area (PMA), and the race passes through it for that top half of the loop. So from the planning side of things, it’s been a little bit different because we’ve had to do close coordination with Conuma. When our volunteers go out to repaint the markers, we need to have a Conuma employee help us out with that. And they’ve been super good about it. Like they know it needs to be done. And then on the race day itself the volunteers who will be in the PMA—folks like the ATV club—will have to get their special on site safety training before they can be helping out. But Conuma has also helped us a lot with that, because the water station and anything that needs to be done within the PMA, they’re taking care of all of that. So it means less recruiting of volunteers for us. It’s super helpful.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
