Colorado's Only Homegrown Sport Still Has Two Legs Left This August

Picture two miners hitting gold at the exact same spot. Same claim, same day. And the only way to make it official is to beat the other guy back to town and file first. Problem is, their burros are loaded down with mining gear, so nobody can ride. So they run. On foot. Dragging a stubborn animal the whole way.

That is the legend, anyway. And whether it happened exactly like that or not, it turned into the one sport Colorado can actually call its own.

Most people do not realize this, but pack burro racing is the official state summer heritage sport, designated back in 2012. It gets called the only indigenous sport of Colorado, and that is a distinction no other state claims. Not one. The Western Pack Burro Ass-ociation (yes, that is really the name, and no, I did not make it up) lobbied to get it on the books.

Where this actually started

The real origin, not the legend, dates to 1949. Somebody offered a $500 prize to anybody willing to race alongside a pack burro on the original route between Leadville and Fairplay. Twenty-one people signed up. Eight finished. That tells you everything about how hard this is.

Today nearly 100 racers and burros line up for it. So it caught on.

Here is the part people miss about the rules. Each burro has to carry mining gear the whole way. A pickax, a shovel, and a gold pan. It is a nod to the days when burros hauled equipment in and out of the mines, and it is not optional. You get checked. Riding the animal is flat out banned. But you are allowed to pull it, push it, and if it comes to that, carry it. And it comes to that more than you would think, because a burro that does not want to move is a wall with legs.

The Triple Crown, and why it is brutal

The Triple Crown has been a thing since 1979. Three long-course races in one summer, and to win it you (the same runner) and your burro (the same burro) have to take your division in all three. No swapping animals halfway through. That is the whole point.

The 2026 lineup runs like this. Fairplay's World Championship Pack Burro Race went off Sunday, July 26. Next up is the Buena Vista Pack Burro Race on Sunday, August 2, which they run on Curtis Imrie Day. Then it closes out at the Leadville Boom Days race on Sunday, August 9.

So if you missed Fairplay, you still have two shots.

Fairplay is the monster of the group. The long course covers more than 29 miles with about 3,232 feet of elevation change. You start at 9,953 feet right in town, climb all the way to the top of Mosquito Pass at 13,185 feet, and then turn around and come back. There is a short course too, about 12.3 miles, for people who would like to keep breathing.

This year Fairplay's 77th annual Burro Days ran July 24 through 26. And look, the race is the headliner, but the weekend around it is worth the drive on its own. Parade, live music, gold panning, a Great Llama Race, a Kid's Pack Dog Race, and the one everybody talks about, the outhouse race. I mean an actual outhouse. On wheels.

Leadville changed the course this year

The last leg is Leadville Boom Days on Sunday, August 9, 2026, at 505 Harrison Avenue. Registration and equipment check start at 8:00 a.m. in front of Community Banks of Colorado at 4th & Harrison. That is where you want to be standing if you want a good look before they take off.

Here is what changed. Leadville retired its old 15-mile short course this year, which racers pretty universally described as grueling, and swapped in a new 6.5-mile intermediate route. The classic 21-mile long course stays. So there is now a middle option that did not exist before.

A few things worth knowing before you go

This is not a men's club and never really was. Women have raced since 1951. Barb Dolan is a 13-time Triple Crown winner, which is a staggering number when you understand what one of these takes. Karen Thorpe won the whole Triple Crown in 2011.

And my favorite tradition in the whole sport. Every race hands out a "Last Ass Up the Pass" award to the final team across the line. It is not a consolation prize so much as a straight-up acknowledgment that finishing at all, dead last or not, means you dragged a donkey over a mountain. Respect.

The thing has outgrown Colorado too, honestly. It has spread to New Mexico, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and, of all places, France. But it started here, in these mining towns, and this is still the center of it.

So you have got Buena Vista on August 2 and Leadville on August 9. Two weekends, two mountain towns, and the only sport this state invented. Pick one, bring water, and go watch people convince a very reluctant animal to climb toward 13,000 feet. Buckle up.