Jasper runners establish new ultra-marathon circuit
Alex Lader was lying on the trail, shivering uncontrollably.
He had already run more than 80 kilometres, summited three of four peaks in the Jasper townsite area and spent hours exposed to the sun and heat. Now, after making it about 500 metres past the Signal Mountain campground, his stomach was in severe pain and his body was shutting down.
“I needed to stop,” Lader recalled.
But then, over the course of 20 minutes, he drank three 500-mL bottles of electrolytes and started sipping on a package of baby food. With the help of warm layers and an ultra-power nap, his body rebounded until he could rise to his feet again.
Then he kept running.
For Lader and fellow ultrarunner Ellen Whitman, August 7, will be a day to remember. After starting at 6:07 a.m, 28 hours and 25 minutes later the Jasper residents had summited four of Jasper’s most prominent peaks—Pyramid Mountain, Roche Bonhomme, Signal Mountain and Whistlers’ Mountain—connecting each of the bases by foot. They ran more than 115 kilometres over a route that had never been completed all at once before, establishing a local “Jasper Quad” ultrarunning route, inspired by the already-established Canmore Quad route.
The idea for the Jasper Quad Run emerged when the couple’s planned 200-kilometre FatDog Race in southwestern B.C. was cancelled due to wildfires surrounding Manning Park.
“We had spent the last 7 months training and preparing for the event,” they noted. “It was pretty gut-wrenching to be honest.”
With tons of fitness built up and no race to spend it on, Lader and Whitman were motivated to start Jasper’s own Quad route, an initiative that had been discussed for some time but had never been acted on.
Whitman, originally from Nova Scotia, began running 15 years ago just for the exercise, but she quickly fell in love with it as a way to travel great distances into the backcountry quickly. She’s raced in 100+ km events and even represented the British Columbia 80K trail team in 2024.
Lader, originally from the Toronto area, moved to Jasper in 2020 with Ellen to work with Parks Canada. He began his running career in a 10-kilometre race in 2014, taking up marathons and road running after that until he and Ellen ran the Sinister 7 100-miler in Crowsnest Pass with a relay team in 2018. Ever since then, “we’ve been hooked on long-distance trail running,” Lader said.
While the two moved to Tofino, B.C. in 2023, neither could stay away for very long and ended up returning to Jasper in April of 2025. They are now deeply involved with the community, working at the Jasper Recovery Coordination Centre and as a forest fire research scientist with Natural Resources Canada, respectively. They have also formed deep connections with the local running community, including locals like Brooklyn Rushton, Madeline Trottier, Caroline Roy, Kyle Payne, James Greene and Brittany (Britt) Weigel, who all participated and/or supported the couple’s expedition as trail crew.
While Jasper’s running community may be smaller and less well-known than Canmore’s, the couple and other local runners wanted to put their own version of the Quad on the map, so to speak, to inspire others.
However, the biggest challenge with a Jasper version of the Quad Run lies in the size of the Jasper valley. While the Canmore Quad spans approximately 52 kilometres and just under 5,000 metres of elevation, the unprecedented Jasper Quad run spans 115 kilometres and 6,250 metres of elevation.
“If you’re the kind of person who thinks that running 100 km on a whim sounds fun, then this is a dream route.”
Due to the last-minute cancellation of their race, the team put their heads together four days in advance to plan the route and call upon friends for support. Six devoted friends came out to support the couple across their run, even through the middle of the night.
“I was inspired by how invested, encouraging, and hardworking everyone that supported us was. There were multiple times, particularly at night, that I was struck by how amazing it was that our friends were still willing to keep going both with running and crewing. It was like, ‘how are you still here!?’” Ellen expressed.
Some even ran alongside them for much of the way. Brooklyn Rushton, notably, completed 70 kilometres and three of the four peaks in collaboration.
The route was closely followed, with some improvisation to avoid wildlife or meet with crew earlier.
Alex’s dehydration episode on Roche Bonhomme and Signal became one of the biggest challenges of the run, causing what he described as a “deep struggle hole” when the sun set on the way down.
“We made it about 500 metres past the Signal campground when I felt pretty strong pains in my stomach and called out to Ellen and Brooklyn ahead of me that I needed to stop. […] I then started to shiver uncontrollably,” Alex recounted.
“While on the ground, I drank three 500ml bottles with electrolytes in about 20 minutes, and started sipping on a package of baby food.”
With the help of layers of warm clothes and an ultra-power nap, Alex’s body rebounded almost completely, and they continued on.
Ellen’s struggles came near the end, when her sore, completely blistered feet convinced her that she would end her day at the Whistlers parking lot. With support from her friend Caroline, she continued to their endpoint at Jasper the Bear, where their friends were waiting with cheers and handmade finisher medals.
“It was incredibly emotional.”
However, just like any excursion, funny surprises also made an appearance. On the middle-of-the-night route from Signal to Old Fort Point, hundreds of toads covered the trails.
“We had to step really carefully to make sure that we didn’t hurt them.”
“Somehow, doing the Jasper Quad made it feel even more like this is our home,” they told me. “Now we feel even more a part of the Jasper community.”
Finally, Alex and Ellen hope their endeavour will spark the interest of other runners who want to complete the newly established Jasper Quad.
“We absolutely hope other people will try this and encourage them to do so.”
They hope that others will either join them in the future, or that the couple can support them on their run instead.
“Lots of people take on the Canmore Quad, and we could see the Jasper Quad also becoming a classic for people willing to spend a longer day out in the mountains with a bit more running.”
Sophie Pfisterer // info@thejasperlocal.com
