The Laich o' Moray Challenge walks are 30 and 50 mile circular routes with a time restriction of 14 and 24 hours respectively.

Both routes are common for the first 16 miles to Roseisle, at which point the LoM30  heads south to the Heldon Hill ridge, via Alves VH, where it rejoins the LoM50 route for the last 7 miles.

Start Date and time it will be next held :  8am on Saturday 29th August 2026 (Marshal's walk on 8th August). Runners and jog-walk participants will set off at 10am.

Start/Finish Location: Rafford Village Hall, (grid ref NJ067556, W3W ///paper.dozen.blackouts) NEW START POINT THIS YEAR!!

The Route: From the Rafford Village Hall this challenge walk takes a woodland route to connect with the Dava Way LDP towards Forres. Just after Dallas Dhu Distillery, the route goes eastward through local community woods, parklands and peripheral countryside. It then leaves the town at Sueno's Stone, a Picto-Scottish Class III standing stone and heads to Findhorn along a tarmac path and then follows the coastline to Roseisle and Lossiemouth on the beach and coastal paths. LoM30 walkers head south at Roseisle and rejoin the LoM50 route on Heldon Hill. From Lossiemouth the LoM50 walkers take the disused railway line and minor roads to Elgin, then along the River Lossie to the outskirts of the city. Then west through the Quarrel Woodsand across the busy A96 and then through some more woodland to gain a minor road heading south to Miltonduff Village Hall. From here it is through forestry on wide tracks to gain the Heldon Hill ridge. The two routes rejoin at this point and stay high on the hill all the way to the Califer viewpoint at the west end of the ridge. From Califer the route goes SW back to the Rafford Village Hall. Please note that the date and time of this event have been carefully chosen regarding tide times, to enable participants to walk along the beach sections in daylight without fear of getting their feet wet.

Participants: This LDWA challenge event is for experienced long distance walkers and runners. Participants should have recently completed walks of over 25 miles for the 50 mile challenge. 

Booking a place: Booking by SiEntries  only for both distances. The SiEntries booking system will be made live for both events on 1st March 2026. The combined events will be restricted to 100 places, so please book early to guarantee a place. 

LoM50 Entrance Fee (2026):  £45 for LDWA Members, £60 for non-members (Free for Marshal's walk on 8th August) Link to SiEntries to book onto the LoM50

LoM30 Entrance Fee (2026):  £35 for LDWA Members, £50 for non-members (Free for Marshal's walk on 8th August) Link to SiEntries to book onto the LoM30

Participant Information Pack : Will be sent out to participants

Runners Welcome! For all those that like to jog walk or run these challenges, we will set you off at 10am so that we don't have to extend our checkpoint opening times too much. Don't forget that it's not a race and you will need to pass through the checkpoints within their opening times. Please let us know if you intend to jog/walk or run it.

Camping at Rafford Village Hall: The hall committee are kindly allowing tents and camper vans to use the adjacent playing field during this challenge event providing that anyone using this permission keeps well away from the nearby houses and keeps disturbance to a minimum. The village hall side access door will be left unlocked on Friday night to allow campers to use the hall toilet facilities. There are no showers in the village hall.

Maps: O/S Explorer map 423 covers the whole route for both events. Here is a downloadable map of 2023 LoM50 which started from Forres. There will be a new map as soon as the route is finalised. Download LoM30 2026 map

GPS: A 2026 GPX file of the route is available to download here. Download LoM50 route,  Download LoM30 route

Route Description: The 2026 LoM route descriptions are  available to download here LoM50 RD (Word), LoM50 RD (PDF), LoM30 RD (Word), LoM30 RD (PDF)

Event Contact: petem.nwgldwa@btinternet.com

A Forres information pack, for those that are not familiar to the area, is available to download here.

The LoM50 is a qualifiying event for the Annual 100 mile challenge 

Photos from the route: