HOKA Pacific Trails California by UTMB, live.

A ranch that was closed to the public

A UTMB World Series trail race run entirely on a private 30,000-acre cattle ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, on roads and trails that were not open to the public before.

HOKA Pacific Trails California by UTMB is run over the weekend of 13-15 November 2026 on Rancho San Fernando Rey in the Santa Ynez Valley, on California’s Central Coast just inland from the Pacific. The organiser describes the ranch as 30,000 acres with more than 100 miles of roads and trails, a property that dates to the Mexican land-grant era and was previously closed to the public. Basecamp and the start/finish are in an open cattle-ranch barn among oak trees. The valley is the ancestral home of the Chumash.

There are two races. The 50K, on Saturday 14 November at 07:00, measures 51 km with 1,550 m of climbing and a 10-hour limit. It carries two Running Stones. The 25K, on Sunday 15 November at 08:00, measures 25 km with 650 m of climbing and a 5-hour limit, and carries one. The courses follow historic ranch roads and wagon tracks and climb on singletrack through oak canyons to the ridgetops, through sage scrub, live oak, grassland and chaparral, past blue oaks and serpentine rock and across creeks. Loma Alta, at 2,758 ft (840 m) in the middle of the ranch, looks out over Cachuma Lake.

A private ranch has no roadside to stand on, so most supporters wait at basecamp. On Livebib the runner shares a link to their own broadcast. Family open it in a browser, with no account and no app, and see the position on the course line, distance covered and a finish estimate that updates as the race goes. Anything estimated is marked as estimated. Down in a canyon, where a phone can lose signal, the position is carried forward along the course rather than freezing.