Detroit Lakes' 2nd Annual Last One Standing

Detroit Lakes, Minnesota — What began with a crowd of runners, spectators and supporters slowly became quieter as the hours passed at Detroit Mountain.

One by one, runners stopped, tents disappeared, the crowd thinned and rain continued to fall, making an already challenging trail increasingly slippery. Still, the remaining competitors returned to the starting line each hour.

The Sasquatch Run and Last One Standing brought runners to Detroit Mountain on Saturday, Sept. 26, for two trail-running events designed to test athletes across more than four miles of hills, rocks, trees and changing fall conditions.

The day began with the Sasquatch Trail Run at 9 a.m., giving participants the opportunity to complete one loop of the course. At 10 a.m., a different kind of competition began.

Last One Standing followed a simple premise: complete one loop every hour and continue until only one runner remains.

The format transformed the trail run into an endurance challenge that continued long after the initial excitement of the starting line faded. Competitors had to contend not only with the distance but also with repeated climbs and descents, wet terrain, limited recovery time and the mental challenge of choosing to return to the course hour after hour.

Xyle Altura was hired to photograph and film the event from beginning to end. As the competition continued, Altura watched the atmosphere at Detroit Mountain change along with the number of runners.

“It was high energy and a huge crowd right at the beginning,” Altura said. “It was like a very uplifting community.”

That energy became more subdued as competitors left the race and the day stretched into the night.

“Towards the end, it got really late, and less people were running,” Altura said.

“Eventually there were fewer tents and a smaller crowd to show support; it got a little quieter.”

With fewer people remaining, however, the competition became more intense.

Running more than four miles once can be difficult. Last One Standing asked competitors to do it repeatedly, with each new hour bringing another trip through the Detroit Mountain trails.

Then there was the rain.

The course was already slippery when Altura followed runners onto portions of the trail early in the event. As rain continued to fall, the conditions deteriorated.

“It was pretty slippery already to start off with,” Altura said.

Detroit Mountain’s terrain added to the challenge. Runners traveled across sections with uphill and downhill stretches, rocks and trees. The rain left competitors navigating those obstacles on increasingly wet ground.

“Later on, it kept raining and going,” Altura said. “I assume for the runners, it was really hard and challenging, given the fact that [there] was also a lot of uphill and downhill [stretches] and rocks and trees.”

At one point, the weather and wooded surroundings created an unexpected obstacle. Altura learned that a tree had fallen in front of one of the runners while he happened to be recording nearby.

He did not immediately understand why the runner had stopped.

“Funny enough, it was the same exact time as I was recording,” Altura said. “Then when I found out about it, it was like, ‘Oh, that’s what happened.’ The girl stopped running for a bit because there was a tree that fell.”

For Altura, the weather also changed the visual story he was documenting. Rain, fall scenery and the Detroit Mountain landscape created what he described as a “cinematic experience.”

“There’s a lot of great views, given that it was fall and then it was raining,” Altura said. “It added a lot of dramatic effect to it.”

For the runners, however, those conditions meant another obstacle between the starting line and the completion of each loop.

The challenge of Last One Standing was not simply completing the course. Finishing a loop only guaranteed another opportunity to do it again.

Despite the event’s elimination format, Altura said the atmosphere among the runners was not defined solely by competition.

As someone positioned outside the race, watching through a camera, he noticed competitors encouraging one another even as each person’s continued participation brought the field closer to determining a winner.

“I want to say almost a mixture of both, but I noticed more that there was a supportive kind of environment than the competitive,” Altura said. “I think everybody was just kind of cheering each other on even though they’re in a competitive situation.”

That support became especially apparent as the number of competitors dwindled.

With each completed loop, runners had limited time to recover before starting again. As the event progressed, competitors who had started surrounded by a larger field found themselves returning to the trail with fewer people beside them.

Eventually, only two remained.

The final pair continued into the last stage of the competition after most of the runners, spectators and supporters who had been at Detroit Mountain earlier had left.

For Altura, their determination became one of the defining elements of the event.

“The amount of determination these runners have to just keep going and pushing,” Altura said, was what stood out most during his time documenting the competition.

He estimated the final two competitors continued for nearly 24 hours.

“It’s really interesting what motivates these runners, especially the last two people who were running,” Altura said.

The supportive atmosphere remained even when the competition reached its conclusion. After spending hours competing against one another, the final two runners congratulated each other.

“They cheered each other [on], gave each other hugs and congratulated each other for how hard they worked,” Altura said.

For an event designed around determining the last person capable of continuing, the interaction reflected something Altura had observed throughout the competition: runners could compete against each other while still wanting to see one another succeed.

Altura initially did not expect to remain continuously engaged with the event for as long as he did. He had been hired to document the competition and was told he could take breaks and sleep as Last One Standing stretched into the night. Instead, he found himself reluctant to step away.

Part of that came from his responsibility to capture the event. Another part was personal. Luke Steichen, one of Altura’s friends, was among the final two competitors.

“I just had this adrenaline in me [where] it’s hard to sleep because I don’t want to miss out on anything,” Altura said.

Watching the final stages through a camera placed him in an unusual position. He was there professionally to document what happened, but he was also watching someone he knew push through the final hours of an endurance competition. Altura also watched Luke’s support system remain with him as the competition continued. His fiancée and father stayed to support him through the race.

“Seeing that, from my perspective, without any form of really close relation to them, and how much they support this person doing something that he’s really passionate about is what really got to me,” Altura said.

The experience became emotional for Altura as the field narrowed. Documenting an endurance event required capturing more than runners moving through a trail. As the hours passed, his camera also documented the people waiting for competitors to return, the encouragement between runners and the exhaustion that accumulated with each loop.

“It was inspiring,” Altura said while documenting the final competitors.

The Last One Standing format changes how runners approach distance. Unlike a traditional race with a predetermined finish line, competitors do not begin knowing exactly how many miles they will run. Their total distance depends on how long they and the other competitors can continue. A completed loop does not necessarily mean a runner is close to finishing. Instead, it means another starting line is approaching. That creates a different test from the one-loop Sasquatch Trail Run held earlier in the day. Participants in the traditional trail run knew the course would end after one trip through the four-plus-mile route.

Last One Standing competitors had to prepare to repeat it.

The format required runners to manage their pace, recovery and energy while knowing that another loop awaited them at the beginning of the next hour. As the field shrank, the question changed from how quickly someone could complete the course to how long someone could continue choosing to run it.

For Altura, who considers himself a runner and athlete, watching that process affected how he thought about his own physical limits.

“It’s just really inspiring to see these people and what they can do,” Altura said.

The experience made him want to push himself further in his own athletic activities.

His perspective also differed from that of someone watching only the beginning or end. By documenting the entire event, Altura saw the progression from a crowded, energetic starting area to the quieter final hours.

Early in the competition, runners were surrounded by other competitors and a larger group of supporters. As time passed, fewer people remained to make noise around the course.

The runners who continued had already traveled the same difficult trail repeatedly. The hills did not become smaller. The rocks and trees did not disappear. Instead, rain made the terrain more difficult, while fatigue accumulated. Yet runners continued returning to the starting line.

The Sasquatch Trail Run returned to Detroit Mountain this year with both its traditional one-loop race and the Last One Standing endurance challenge. Organizers advertised the event as an opportunity for participants to experience the mountain’s fall trails while choosing between the single-loop run and the endurance format. The two options opened the event to runners seeking different challenges. The 9 a.m. trail run offered the four-plus-mile course as a conventional race, while Last One Standing began an hour later and removed a predetermined finishing distance.

The event also brought spectators and supporters to Detroit Mountain for a competition that could not be measured by a typical race schedule. For the people who remained as Last One Standing stretched through the day and into the night, supporting a competitor meant waiting through repeated loops and uncertain hours.

Altura saw that commitment firsthand as he continued filming.

By the final stages, much of the high-energy crowd from the beginning was gone. The quieter surroundings placed greater focus on the few runners who remained and the supporters who stayed with them.

The contrast from a busy starting line to a small group waiting for the final runners became part of the story Altura captured. By the time the competition reached its final stages, the conditions and repeated loops had eliminated most of the field.

The last two competitors continued while Altura kept his camera nearby.

He had already spent hours documenting runners navigating the trail, changing weather and growing fatigue. Yet it was the final competitors who left the strongest impression on him.

Their continued willingness to return to the course demonstrated what the Last One Standing format is designed to test: not simply speed, but endurance and the willingness to continue when stopping remains an option.

For nearly a day, the competition moved through different versions of the same course. What changed were the weather, the number of runners and the physical demands accumulating with every mile.

The crowd that had welcomed runners at the beginning became smaller. The mountain became quieter. The trail became muddier.

The encouragement between competitors remained.

For Altura, what began as a job documenting an endurance event ultimately became something he could relate to as an athlete.

“It was just a really fun and amazing experience to be able to document something,” Altura said.

After watching runners repeatedly return to a slippery mountain trail through rain, fatigue and hours of competition, the moment that stayed with him was not necessarily about who crossed a finish line first.

It was their determination to return to the starting line again.