Shotover Moonlight
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About the race
The Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon is an off‑road mountain race held on Ben Lomond Station near Queenstown, New Zealand. The course starts below the Pipeline Bridge in Skippers Canyon and finishes at Moke Lake. The route follows abandoned 1880s gold mining water races, sheep tracks on razorback ridges, ridgelines, beech forest and river valleys, and includes features such as a ladder beside a waterfall, a scree slope descent and an abandoned mining tunnel. The event involves demanding single track running, with over 60 percent single track terrain and more than 2500 m of cumulative climbing and descending.
Trail surface breakdown given for the course includes approximately 13 km of water race single track, 13 km of ridgeline and other single track, 8 km of riverbed and valley running, and 8 km on farm 4WD track. Cutoff arrangements are set for safety: a short course option is triggered at the 24.5 km point if competitors pass a designated cutoff, reducing distance by about 6 km and removing roughly 500 m of climb, and an overall 12 hour cutoff applies with vehicle extraction for those still on course. The races are run by the Foster family on private high country station land. Pre race accommodation packages with helicopter transfers to the start are offered from the local lodges and Moke Lake serves as the finish and staging area. Visit the organization's website for the most recent information.
