The Roadless Rule

Race Director Joint Letter

Do you direct a trail race in the United States? Join race directors across the country in speaking out to protect the Roadless Rule! Trail races that take place in national forests could be negatively impacted if the Roadless Rule is rescinded. The rule limits road construction and extractive development in inventoried roadless areas while protecting the wild landscapes that support outstanding recreation—including many trail races (see our interactive map below). We encourage you to sign this letter even if your race does not directly overlap an inventoried roadless area.

Colorado and Idaho are not included in the current proposal because they have separate, state-specific roadless rules that the administration is not presently seeking to rescind. Even so, we encourage race directors in those states to sign on. Those protections could face future challenges, and a strong, unified voice from the trail-running community matters. In 2025 over 90 race directors from 34 states joined our previous letter—you can read it here.

Please read this year’s letter and use the form below it to sign on by September 19:

September 21,  2026

Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination
201 14th Street SW
Mailstop 1108
Washington, DC 20250-1124

Re: Race Director Opposition to Roadless Rule Rescission and Support for the No Action Alternative

To Whom It May Concern:

The undersigned race directors of trail running events across the country write to oppose rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and to support the No Action Alternative in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Many of our events rely on national forest landscapes that remain largely undeveloped, including areas within or adjoining Inventoried Roadless Areas. Those settings are not incidental to races. They help define these events’ character, challenge, and connection to the communities that host them.

For the trail running community, roadless areas protect the qualities that make running on public lands distinct: quiet, clean water, intact habitat, scenic integrity, and long stretches of backcountry trail. Those values are reflected in nationally known places across the country, including the Mount Hood area on the Pacific Crest Trail, the backcountry trails of the North Cascades on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, and George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia where roadless protections help sustain non-motorized and dispersed recreation opportunities. When roads and associated development move into these places, the running experience changes in lasting ways.

The current Roadless Rule gives national forests a clear, uniform framework for keeping these undeveloped areas intact. Rescinding the Rule would replace that clarity with a patchwork of forest-level and project-level decisions, creating uncertainty for the places our events rely on and for the organizers, runners, volunteers, and host communities who plan around them. Trail races are built around the enduring appeal of these landscapes. As those conditions are diminished, so too are the experiences and traditions that depend on them.

Trail races also contribute meaningfully to local economies. Race weekends bring runners, families, crews, and volunteers to gateway towns, supporting lodging, restaurants, stores, and outfitters—many communities have come to rely on recreation tied to healthy, undeveloped public lands. Maintaining Roadless Rule protections helps sustain that long-term model. Weakening those protections risks harm not only to the running experience, but to the communities and small businesses connected to it.

As areas like the Pacific Northwest face increasingly severe fire seasons, rescinding the Roadless Rule would not address the main drivers of rising wildfire risk and could increase human-caused ignitions, which occur overwhelmingly near roads. The existing Rule already allows emergency road construction for imminent fire threats and permits fuel reduction work. Just as importantly, USDA’s own proposal makes clear that this rulemaking is about more than fire: it is expressly tied to increased timber production, energy and mineral development, and deregulation. Rather than eliminating protections across millions of acres, the Forest Service should focus on strategic treatments near communities, prescribed fire, and the Rule’s existing management exceptions.

For all of these reasons, we urge the Forest Service to reject rescission of the Roadless Rule and select the No Action Alternative in the DEIS. Race directors need confidence that the places their events depend on will remain intact, and future runners should have the same opportunity to experience these forests in a condition that still feels wild, connected, and undeveloped.

Sincerely,

[Signatures of Race Directors]

Race Directors Signed

(Alphabetical)

States With Races Signed

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Interactive Map