To move from Alpine valleys to the world, trail concepts exported outward must be rooted in mountain culture to have substance.

Equipment is the foundation of everything, and developing trail-running gear goes far beyond lab specs on paper. In Salomon’s development system, athletes are not merely users of gear; the real-world scenarios and needs of runners at different levels form the underlying logic of product-line design.

2007 was a landmark year in Salomon’s R&D history, when the S/Lab development system was formally established—an entire R&D framework Salomon built specifically for elite competition,its core lies in deep co-creation with athletesIt breaks away from the one-way output model of traditional laboratories, embedding elite athletes fully into the entire R&D chain:from needs analysis and prototype refinement to repeated real-world testing on mountain racecourses.

©Salomon

Athletes are not only competitors on the course but also product testers and co-creators of trail-running culture.Real feedback from the trails continuously drives equipment iteration, ensuring products truly serve mountain running. This working mechanism, born in 2007, established the underlying logic that has carried through Salomon’s elite competition product line; many subsequent benchmark products have continued S/Lab’s athlete co-creation R&D approach.

With the equipment foundation laid, a complete blueprint for trail-running culturealso needs to be built through coordination among events, athletes, and community.

On the events side, the Golden League, 柴古唐斯, and the “Lighthouse Program” form Salomon’s three stable pillars, linking domestic races and international courses both ways: supporting domestic athletes to compete abroad while bringing overseas athletes to domestic events, and this two-way exchange raises the sport’s level of professionalism.

Relying on the significant boost from the second phase of the "Lighthouse Plan," the 2026 Chaigutangs Kuocang Trail Race, scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 this year, has unveiled.total prize pool of up to 1.2 million yuanamong which the 105K category champion, beyond the organizing committee’s 65,000-yuan prize, can receive an additional 65,000 yuan, bringing the single-race prize total toas much as 130,000 yuan, setting a new domestic single-race champion prize record.

The large prize fund builds a high-level competitive platform for elite athletes and pushes domestic trail running toward greater professionalization and internationalization.

On athlete development, the brand’s pyramid-shaped talent pipeline is steadily taking shape—global top elites hold the competitive ceiling, core signed athletes consistently deliver results, while the “Future Team” provides a long-term answer, upgrading Salomon’s talent approach from “discovering” to “incubating.”

Last month, the “Future Team” (China Next Gen Project), launched in China and focused on the long-term future of Chinese trail running, began providing promising young domestic athletes with international coaching, sports-science support, rehabilitation services, and international racing opportunities, filling gaps in domestic youth talent development.

In addition, Salomon has paid close attention to the needs of underrepresented athlete groups.About five years ago, the brand established a Salomon para-athlete team, integrating inclusive competition into its overall athlete system.

Before that, options for prosthetics and outdoor gear adapted for amputees and mobility-impaired people in mountain sports were very limited, and high customization costs further raised the barrier to participation in trail running and high-altitude hiking. Salomon’s disability team partnered with aerospace research institutes and engineering universities to advance the Hopper prosthetics development program, applying the brand’s years of mountain-sole anti-slip and abrasion-resistant technologies to the sole modules of sport prostheses, allowing athletes with disabilities to see more possibilities in life.

But the core of trail running isn't only racing and competition; community groups also play an important role in passing on mountain values.

As trail running has gone global, training camps have shifted toward identifying elite talent and developing competitive athletes. In 2014 an elite training camp was established in China, becoming one of the country's earliest major talent nurseries for trail running and producing a cohort of top domestic trail runners.

Later the camp system was further stratified, spawning mass-community projects such as GO 野.These target ordinary enthusiasts with mountain-knowledge education and beginner training, lowering the barrier to participation and steadily expanding trail running’s grassroots base,so the sport is no longer the preserve of a small elite.

By then the Salomon training camp had evolved from an initial platform for equipment testing into a comprehensive program combining high-level competitive development, introductory education, and mountain-culture outreach — and Salomon's original intent to co-create deeply with athletes has never changed.

Chamonix during UTMB week is not just about competition on the course. This year Salomon also launched an in-person Outdoor Mecca exploration check-in activity in Chamonix, shifting the focus from trail racing to the town's rich mountain-sport history.

This walking check-in routeconnects the7 landmarks，covering historical touchpoints across mountaineering, trail running, alpine skiing, paragliding, water-based outdoor sports and more, and it also traces Salomon’s innovation and development trajectory in outdoor sport.

From the Balmat–Saussure statue representing the origins of modern mountaineering, to the ENSA mountain school, Chamonix church, and the paragliding launch site, as runners move through Chamonix's streets and alleys they can not only see the brand's trail gear but also deeply experienceSalomon ski boots, snowboards, and Salomon’s paragliding-specific product S/LAB SKYWAY.

By visitingthe seven landmark points, photographing and checking in on social media, and depending on the number of landmarks checked in, participants can go to the Salomon Chamonix flagship store to redeem corresponding limited gifts: Salomon kinesiology tape, a custom “Salo” hat coin purse, and a Chamonix-exclusive T‑shirt.

For theChinese runners who come to UTMB, this offers a different off-course experience:You don't have to stare only at the race clock — by walking you can touch the town's mountain history and see the broader outdoor culture behind trail running.