Enduro2 Wraps Up The Season at Aletsch Arena​

16 stages, more than 10,000 metres of descending, a few EDR race tracks plus a whole lot of previously unexplored singletrack and, somewhat less predictably, the inaugural Dirtlej Enduro2 Belly-Flop World Championships.

The first Dirtlej Enduro2 Aletsch turned out to be a fitting way to round off the 2026 season, and boy oh boy, Aletsch Arena absolutely blew our minds as an almost other-worldly spot to enjoy lift-accessed riding.

Aletsch hardly needs introducing to anyone who has been following top-level enduro racing. The combination of seriously technical terrain and the enormous Aletsch Glacier has produced some fairly memorable racing at recent the EDR.

What we were interested in finding out was how the area would work, for something rather different. Enduro2 isn’t designed around repeating a handful of race tracks after several days of practice. The whole idea is to take two riders, send them off blind for three big days in the mountains and use timing & competition primarily to add a bit of spice & camaraderie to what is essentially just an exceptionally good long-weekend adventure with your mate.

For that to work, you need much more than a few excellent race stages. You need enough trails, lifts and variety to build a genuine journey through the mountains.

Aletsch delivered all of the above, beyond expectations.

That’s quite some statement, given the event’s history. We wouldn’t put it that way ourselves, but this is exactly what we heard spoken aloud, time and again over the weekend.

A Comprehensive 3-Day Trail Smorgasbord

The inaugural Aletsch Enduro2 was based in Bettmeralp, the car-free village perched on the mountainside high above the Rhône Valley. From there, the route stretched from Riederalp in the west, across Bettmeralp and Fiescheralp and eventually over to Bellwald.

Over three days riders tackled 16 blind stages and more than 10,000 metres of descending. Some trails had already acquired a fearsome reputation through the EDR, while others were probably rather less familiar to anyone other than locals.

If Day One was the introduction, Day Two was where Aletsch properly got its teeth out.
The day began high above Fiescheralp before dropping into two long stages delivering almost 1,000 vertical metres of descending between them. Both had previously featured in EDR racing and the second was one of the most technically demanding trails of the event, with steep, rocky natural terrain providing a fairly abrupt morning wake-up call.

Finish Marshall, Dave later reported that :

Make of that what you will.

World-class race tracks are only part of the story

We already knew Aletsch had serious enduro terrain. You don’t host successive rounds of the EDR without that. What was perhaps more interesting over three days of Enduro2 was discovering how much riding exists beyond those recognisable race tracks.

For visiting riders, Bettmeralp makes a particularly unusual base. The village itself is car-free and sits high on the mountain, while the lift network provides access across Riederalp, Bettmeralp and Fiescheralp, with Bellwald adding yet another riding area within reach.

The terrain changes constantly. There are purpose-built trails, but also huge amounts of natural singletrack through high alpine terrain and forest, with the possibility of linking together descents that lose well over a thousand metres of altitude.

That variety matters if you’re coming here for a riding holiday rather than a race weekend. You could spend several days in Aletsch without simply repeating the same bike-park laps, and the lift network makes it possible to cover an unusually large chunk of mountain without requiring the legs of a Tour de France leg-shaver.

And then there is the scenery. The Aletsch Glacier is difficult to ignore, not least because at 20-plus kilometres long it has a habit of occupying a fairly substantial portion of the view.

For riders who already know Aletsch from watching the EDR, that’s probably the bigger takeaway from the weekend: the famous race stages are just one part of a much larger trail network.

The combined-age categories once again provided useful evidence that growing older doesn’t necessarily result in growing up. Former Enduro World-Champion Jerome Clementz and his apparently just-as-quick brother Pierre won the 77+ in 1:16:35, while Hoffmann / Damseaux took the 100+ category in 1:22:05.