Beginning and ending near the Arkansas River, in Buena Vista, the course primarily follows single track trails along part of the old, historic Midland Railroad as well as through other scenic areas north and east of town. Encompassing great scenery and spectacular views, much of the course runs through lands managed by the National Forest and/or Bureau of Land Mnaagement. Due to changes instituted by those agencies, participants in 2004 enjoyed a slightly different course from the one run for the previous number of years. Truly "new and improved", the current course retains most of the previous course along with great new segments now added! 25-miler's do the loop once and the 5-milers do it twice (the second time around is counterclockwise). Very much an up-and-down course, approximately 4,700 feet of elevation gain/drop is delivered in each loop!

Note: There is one additional annotation that needs to be added to the map.
When running on trail (moving clockwise on the course), runners will come to a large open, sandy draw that has a fire pit/ring down in the center. As they face that area, they will see a hill and large rock formation on the far side - they are to veer right, passing around the base of the hill / formation. Once past, they will then pick up forest service road 375C (see map).