Founder of RUFA, Jared Campbell and his wife, Mindy embrace after she and their 12-year-old daughter completed five laps for RUFA. (John Strater Brown/Millcreek)

At dusk, on the first Friday in February, Millcreek’s Grandeur Peak was busy with endurance runners and hikers for this year’s Running Up For Air (RUFA) event.

RUFA at Grandeur Peak was started by a local endurance runner, Jared Campbell and his trail running friends.

“It’s all about air quality. All of these crazy people here are long distance runners. We all asked the question a bunch of years ago, ‘Could we run up mountains and use that to raise money?’ We raised just a few thousand dollars in the first year. We ran it informally and unofficially for several years and people really liked it,” Campbell said.

As a mountain trail runner on the Wasatch Front, Campbell could see the poor air quality sitting over the city from the summit and decided to raise money to help clean up the air in the valley. This year, the RUFA race on Grandeur Peak raised between $20,000 to $30,000.

“Runners pay a fee to enter the race and many people elect to fundraise. Each person can also have a sponsor,” Campbell added. “There was one person who raised $4,000 just by himself.” 

“The event donates the money to Utah Clean Energy and Breath Utah which are two nonprofit organizations that work on finding solutions related to air quality," Campbell said. 

Runners could also contribute to RUFA which is now a 501(c)(3). 

A 24-hour racer, Allison Mervin of Salt Lake City completed seven laps which was over 40 miles for RUFA. (John Strater Brown/Millcreek)

“The number of runners is dictated by us,” Campbell said. “There were 240 runners today, any more would be too many on the path.”

Racers ran up and down the trail in Millcreek over a span of 24 hours. The goal was to complete as many laps up and down the east side of Grandeur Peak starting at the Church Fork trail head in Millcreek Canyon during a specific race time frame. This is no easy feat with the trail to the summit being about three miles one way and just over six miles round trip with around 2,400 feet of elevation gain. 

Trail running and hikers were able to select a race for six hours, 12 hours or 24 hours. The starting time changed depending on the race selected. Popular amongst running couples was the date night run which began on Friday night at 7 p.m. and finished at 1 a.m.

George and Alicia O’Dell of Millcreek, having a fun date night at RUFA running up and down Grandeur Peak. (John Strater Brown/ Millcreek)

George and Alicia O’Dell from Millcreek have participated in RUFA for the last three years. The O’Dells prefer the Friday date night race, but the trail had its challenges this year. 

“It was very icy at the top and muddy at the bottom,” Alicia O’Dell said. They used their micro spikes at the summit.

Trevor Gulbrandsen of Park City has run in this event twice. Gulbrandsen enjoys running and likes challenges and completed three laps in six hours. “Hopefully, we can do something about the air down here,” Gulbrandsen said. 

Twenty-eight-year-old Peter Stone has been training for some time. Stone ran the six hour race. “I got three laps in and it’s just a really fun event,” Stone said.

“We want it to be more than just a race, and so we do these really cool events like the one last week called the Changemakers,” Campbell said. “We had 10 speakers doing something interesting in the clean air space. We had several entrepreneurs, faculty members from the University of Utah and the executive director of Utah Clean Energy. They each gave short presentations including one on respiratory diseases.” 

Trevor Gulbrandsen of Park City completed three laps in six hours. (John Strater Brown/Millcreek)

“There is so much that needs to be done but I think if you first start with educating every person about bad air quality and then we talk about solutions. There are little things people can do and then on to big things,” Campbell said. 

Campbell is not only in charge of RUFA but he also ran in the 24-hour race and completed 12 laps. This year, one runner completed 14 laps up and down Grandeur Peak. The 26-year-old Tyler Valovic of Cottonwood Heights broke a RUFA lap record.

“In just a few minutes, my 12-year-old daughter Phoebe and her friend Marlowe are going to finish five laps,” Campbell said. 

“Five years ago Phoebe completed one lap, the next year was two laps, then three and last year four. This year she and her friend Marlowe were totally committed to five. It is amazing since the conditions are crazy.”

It’s a family event for the Campbells. Campbell embraced his wife, Mindy, and cheered on his daughter and her friend, who started at 4 a.m.

RUFA held a second race at the end of February in Ogden on Malans Peak. For more information on RUFA visit upforairseries.org.