10 YEARS OF THE BUFFALO STAMPEDE

It was back in 2014 when Sean and Mel from Mountain Sports launched the inaugural Buffalo Stampede Festival, with a vision to create a gnarly trail race with enough vertical gain per kilometre to be granted the title of Australia's first sanctioned skyrunning race.

So why Bright? Marcus Warner, thenPresident of SkyRunning Australia, was looking for ‘extreme altitude, extreme trail and some of the steepest hills.' Sean and Mel recognised the location as ticking all the boxes required to create (in Sean's words) “…the most extreme mountain run in Australia,” because as far as mountain towns in Australia went, Bright was – and still is – the pick of the bunch, with a 360 degree web of trails stretching from its heart in Mt Buffalo to Mount Bogong and the Alpine Park.

In the early days, the race managed to draw big international attention with names like Dakota Jones, Landie Greyling and Tom Owens. Dakota famously won the inaugural edition of the 75k Ultra with a time of 7:48 that would never come close to being touched. In his post-race interview, Dakota notably said, “As far as vertical and difficulty per kilometre, it was one of the hardest I've ever done.” That meant a lot coming from the man who had beaten Kilian Jornet at Transvulcania just two years earlier.

The stakes were high in Year 1 for the Aussie runners with the first Australian guaranteed entry to the World Skyrunning Championships in Chamonix, France.

This brought an exciting field headed by Jacinta Travena for the ladies, who claimed victory in 10:48, and Blake Hose and Ben Duffus, two very young talented names destined for a bright future. Their battle would go down in history as they traded places in second and third only 20 mins behind Dakota most of the day. That was until both of them ended up DNF, with Blake even deciding to take a nap in Baker's Gully Creek just 7km from the finish.

The race fuelled the growth of the sport of trail running in the country, with many new trail races entering the scene, and often each race was trying to be harder or steeper than the next. The Stampede went a little stagnant, always recognised as a hardcore mountain race, but sometimes overlooked. 2020 saw the cancellation of the race just a couple of weeks before due to the pandemic. The future of the Stampede, much like every event, was very much in doubt.

2021 saw the return, with a new face. SingleTrack Events, a new company

Come on a journey and reminisce about the successful decade-long Buffalo Stampede at Mount Buffalo, Victoria – where runners are morphed into superhumans.

established by three friends and endurance sports lovers Colin Taylor, Luke and Nigel Preston. Their knowledge of event management was deep and since 2019 numbers of runners have been rocket fuelled from circa 400 in 2019 to 1800 in 2023. The new mission of the race – to make trail running for everybody!

2022 saw the evolution of the courses with me, Joseph Dorph, local to the area, coming on board to design a new suite of courses that would showcase more trails. The new cornerstone of the festival would be a race which would embrace everything Mount Buffalo has to offer. To run competitors to the highest peak on the Plateau, the Horn (1723 m asl) from Bright and then return, not the same way, but along a different route so runners could achieve more of a sense of journey.

This worked out to be a beautiful round number of 100km, and so the Bright Ultra 100k was born.

2024 will once again see the Buffalo Stampede in a new light. The transition of the event trailhead from Bright Brewery to The Pavilion at Pioneer Park. It's the 10th Year of this race and the 10th edition, and so SingleTrack believe now is the right time to nail the finishing touches and find the Buffalo Stampede its forever home.

Last year, the race was full to the brim at its beloved Brewery site, and with unknown future plans for the block, the move to a bigger, better, more dynamic site of Pioneer Park is a must. The courses have slightly changed to accommodate the move, and also accommodate the massive fields projected for the 2024 Festival. The good news is they have only gotten better, with the SkyMarathon now taking in more of the trails on the Mount Buffalo Plateau and the SkyRun 20k now incorporating a more diverse mix of trails, from steep climbs, flowy downs, MTB singles and rocky technical trails.

Jacinta Travena won the inaugural 75k race and has since fallen in love, moved to Bright from Melbourne, had two gorgeous girls and is now, 10 years later, considering her comeback. The goal? Complete the very popular Buffalo Stampede Grand Slam 72k in a total elapsed time of less than her winning time in 2014 of 10:48.

It's stories like these which make this beautiful sport of ours go round. They may at times be trivial, or seem silly to the outsider, but in a sport that can be a part of your life for 50 years or more, what matters to one person won't matter to another, and it's a great example of finding your meaning in the sport.

This is the one thing that SingleTrack now defines as the future of the event.

It's about people from all walks of life getting together to run with nature, and share their journey. Consider running the Stampede yourself in 2024 and join what will be the trail party of the Year.

Pursue your goals and Find Your Epic!