Sky Run

In a day and age where we are constantly bombarded by challenges, we need to reach out, to explore, to adventure in the mountains, and find peace in God’s wondrous creation. SkyRun Zim was created by a small family that has lived in this Zimbabwean wilderness for 35 years to do just that.

Zimbabwe’s first ultra-mountain race, arguably one of the most breath-taking races (in every sense of the word) in the world. The SkyRun takes place along the incredible Turaco Trail through an unbelievable variety of flora and fauna in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. The trail was built in 2011 and hosted the first ever sky-running event in 2015.

Funds from SkyRun Zim go towards uplifting the Nyanga National Park through various support projects, anti-poaching efforts and infrastructure development. There are also ongoing bee projects, reforestation projects and a school that is being built in an extremely remote village.

Sky running by definition is an extreme sport of mountain running above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) where the incline exceeds 30% and the climbing difficulty does not exceed II° gradient”. It’s like trail running but harder.

SkyRun Zim is extremely fortunate to have the unbelievable Turaco Trail open itself up to trail runners once a year for this event. The trail runs a total of 106 km from Far and Wide through the Nyanga National Park, over the highest mountain (Mt Nyangani) and ends at the beautiful Aberfoyle lodge, on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Taking runners on a journey through a vast mountain wilderness of wild rivers and waterfalls, afro-montane forests, montane grasslands, valleys, gorges, and mountain peaks.

2022 saw Bitumen World come on board as one of the major sponsors of SkyRun and what an incredible value add it was. Providing helicopter support that spent a few days prior to the race ferrying radio and IP equipment into extremely remote ares so that runners could be monitored and tracked was key to ensuring the huge success of the event. The evening before the race over 100mm of rain came down in the catchments which meant that rivers swelled. So that next morning the helicopter was responsible for getting ropes and equipment into the gorges in order to create various safe crossing routes. On the day Damian (the fantastic pilot) flew teams into place as well as flew an injured runner off the mountain. The day after, once everyone had left, Bitumen World were still on site helping remove infrastructure from the mountain and returning the mountain to its beautiful peaceful natural wilderness. Without the support of Bitumen World SkyRun would not have been the success that it was, so a massive thank you to the amazing Bitumen World team.

2023 promises to be an even better event and we look forward to welcoming you to the mountains.