On September 29, the press conference for China’s highest-altitude comprehensive mountain outdoor competition — the “Red Bull 24-Hour” Plateau Challenge — was held in Kunming. The event will take place on October 25–26 in the Kunming Jiaozi Snow Mountain Scenic Area, with the highest elevation reaching 4,223 meters. A total of 25 teams from Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Nepal will participate in the competition. Competitors will climb a total of 2,200 meters within a 24-hour period, experiencing the cycle of the four seasons — spring, summer, autumn, and winter — amid constantly changing temperatures and scenery.
The “Red Bull 24-Hour” Plateau Challenge adopts the Eco-Challenge format as a race. Each team consists of three men and one woman. The competition events and route settings are adjusted annually to maintain fairness and freshness. This edition features five stages and nine events, including 19 km of run-bike alternation, 28 km of mountain biking, 17 km of trekking, 16 km of mountain hiking, 20 km of orienteering and skills such as rappelling and zip-lining, as well as camping. The race distance has been extended from 80 km last year to 100 km, with a 24-hour cutoff time. The expected completion time for the first-place team is 20 hours, and the projected completion rate is 60%.
The difficulty of completing this year’s race has increased further. “The course is longer, placing higher demands on the athletes’ physical fitness, technical skills, and teamwork, which benefits high-level teams,” said Luo Zhouquan, Technical Director of the Kunming Mountaineering and Exploration Association and Deputy Chief Judge of the event. “At the same time, due to the large number of registered teams, increasing the difficulty appropriately is also necessary to raise the entry threshold for safety reasons.”
According to Luo Zhouquan, “Throughout the race, participants will ascend from an altitude of 2,000 meters to 4,223 meters, requiring excellent cross-country endurance and high-altitude mountaineering ability.” Luo added, “Moreover, the most challenging section is from Xingfu Village through Wumeng Township to Sifangjing. Since this section takes place at night, lighting and route marking are also major challenges.” To address this, the organizers came up with a creative solution: having teams carry torches until they reach the campsite. This also adds a rich ethnic flavor to the event, as the local minority groups have a tradition of celebrating the Torch Festival.
In addition, an 80-meter cliff rappel and a 300-meter-high “Sky Ladder” plank walkway leading to the mountaintop platform are also tough tests for the athletes’ mental and physical endurance.
The main peak, shaped like a sedan chair, stands as a towering snow-capped pillar amidst stunning scenery. Known as the “Number One Mountain of Central Yunnan,” Kunming Jiaozi Mountain offers participants the chance to camp in the mountains and cook over open fires during the race. If they’re lucky, they’ll see the full snow-capped mountain during the day. Due to abundant rainfall, the lower-altitude areas feature dense vegetation and naturally formed small waterfalls. As you ascend to higher altitudes, you’ll encounter snow-capped peaks, with nighttime temperatures potentially dropping to zero degrees. Under certain microclimatic conditions at the summit, snow may even fall at night. Within these 24 hours, participants will have the opportunity to experience all four seasons — spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
The “Red Bull 24-Hour” Off-Road Challenge is the only non-stop daytime and nighttime outdoor competition in China launched by Red Bull. It is a new type of outdoor event built around the concept of “all weather, all terrain, all sports.” Since 2011, the “Red Bull 24-Hour” Beach Race and Plateau Race have been held in Shenzhen and Kunming, respectively.
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The “Red Bull 24-Hour Plateau Challenge” has become one of the few elite races, with an average altitude above 3,500 meters and the largest elevation drop — nearly 1,000 meters of vertical descent — making the competition extremely challenging. Participants must tackle assessments in off-road capability, high-altitude mountaineering adaptation, mountain orienteering, teamwork, and wilderness camping (including setting up tents as a team and cooking over an open fire). They must also complete rappelling and zip-lining down rocky cliffs. Without professional outdoor skills and sufficient mental resilience, these tasks are insurmountable. Beyond physical endurance, the race also tests experience and strategy. There are no route markers during the mountain crossings, and orienteering has traditionally been a weak point for domestic athletes, who must use GPS to locate 6–8 coordinate points to finish the race. Of course, the race isn’t solely about enduring hardship. To add fun, the run-bike alternate event — where two team members take turns running and cycling — doesn’t use mountain bikes but tandem bicycles. One can imagine that synchronization, cooperation, and adaptability between the pair could either be the key to success or a source of humorous mishaps.
According to post-event statistics from the first two editions of the “Red Bull 24-Hour Plateau Challenge,” fewer than 70% of teams completed the race within the stipulated 24 hours. Deputy Chief Judge Luo Zhouquan observed those teams and offered advice to future participants: “Lack of experience is the biggest factor in failure. Most teams are formed on the spot, with poor teamwork, varying levels of fitness, and little prior exposure to outdoor skills like cycling and rappelling. The legendary New Zealand outdoor sports couple, the Usheers, once described our race as a professional-level competition for amateurs, with increasing difficulty. We hope everyone comes prepared so you can truly enjoy the race.” Currently, a quarter of the participants are professional athletes, which delights the event organizers. “The difficulty and influence of the ‘Red Bull 24-Hour Plateau Challenge’ are both growing, and new participants keep joining us. Ultimately, becoming an international event is our goal,” said Luo Zhouquan.
In the previous edition, the legendary couple, the Usheers, were invited by Red Bull to visit Jiaozi Mountain. Before the race, they held training sessions on preparation, fitness, and technique in the historic Yunnan Military Academy — a renowned military school in modern Chinese history. Later, the couple teamed up with top domestic outdoor athletes to compete and ultimately won the championship with a time of 17 hours, 1 minute, and 11 seconds. After the race, Richard Uscher commented, “This was a unique racing experience in my life.” Irina, the female team member, also remarked, “Competing at altitudes above 4,000 meters, both running and cycling are physically demanding for every participant — the intensity is several times greater than competing at sea level.” A year later, when asked by the media, the Usheers still fondly recalled the humorous moments from their team-up with the Chinese athletes: “They didn’t speak English, and we didn’t speak Chinese, so we had to agree on some gestures. Thumb up meant everything was okay; thumb down meant trouble.” After the exhausting race, the couple went on to shoot the iconic Red Bull commercial they endorsed — a powerful ad that could be considered a concentrated essence of the “Red Bull 24-Hour” challenge.