Hounslow Classic | One Epic Blue Mountains Sky Run 2026

Runners gather at Allview Escape on Hat Hill Road in Blackheath for the Hounslow Classic, a September weekend of trail racing on the edge of the Grose Valley Wilderness in the Blue Mountains. The program includes a mountain marathon, a shorter cliff-and-canyon race, and the Hounslow Monster Stage race for runners who want to do both. This is skyrunning in the plain sense: the courses pack a lot of climbing and descending into rough ground, with steep passes, rocky peaks, technical trail, and long drops beside sandstone cliffs. The shorter race follows the cliff-top trail between Govetts Leap and Evans Lookout, then drops into the Grand Canyon track. The marathon uses that route first, then adds an out-and-back from Allview Escape to the Pinnacles through Perrys Lookdown and Lockleys Pylon. Earlier versions of Hounslow helped bring the Australia and New Zealand skyrunning series into the Blue Mountains, using places such as Blue Gum Forest, Pulpit Rock, Junction Rock, and Lockleys Pylon, with some trails that had not been used for race courses before. The weekend draws first-time sky runners as well as experienced long-distance trail runners, but the common thread is the same: hard climbing in and out of the Grose Valley rather than easy running on smooth fire trail.