From Vision to Reality

Evergreen Trail Runs was founded in 2010 by Roger Michel and Yumay Chang, who had a vision to create a series of trail races around Western Washington. Evergreen Trail Runs is now the trail running arm of Orca Running, a locally owned race production company. We look forward to continuing their vision.

Meet the Crew

Katie Warren

Co-Owner, Race Director

Katie serves as the Race Director for Evergreen Trails. She joined Evergreen in 2019, and couldn’t be happier to be a part of this amazing team putting on the best races in the PNW. In the winter, her time is spent up in the mountains as an avalanche forecaster for the Northwest Avalanche Center. Once the snow melts she is back in her running shoes and exploring remote places in the Cascades. Her pup, Nimbus, is always close by and looking for the next adventure.

Porter Bratten

Co-Owner + Marketing Manager

Porter started putting on road races in 2011 with Orca Running and when he got the chance to get into trail race production in 2018, he went for it. Porter mostly works behind the scenes on branding, marketing and the website. His favorite trail running experience was doing the Wonderland Trail (in 3 days, let’s not get carried away) with 2 good friends in 2014.

Ashley Lee

Co-Owner

Ashley is Orca Running’s Race Director but also works behind the scenes for Evergreen to make the races the best they can be! She loves running roads or trails and has completed several marathons. She also received a full ride college volleyball scholarship!

Irene Henninger

Course Manager

Irene has been with Evergreen Trails since 2021, working as Course Manager and doer of all odd jobs. If you think Irene must be a hardcore runner cause she works for Evergreen, you’re wrong! She loves mountain and gravel biking, climbing, skiing, snowmobiling, and general mountain adventures too much to just focus on the running part, although she does think it’s fun. In the winter you’ll find Irene’s name on the backcountry avalanche forecasts for the Northwest Avalanche Center, where she and Katie work alongside each other as well.

Marisa Pasnick

Social Guru

Marisa is PNW native and has been running trails since before it was even cool. She considers herself a functional introvert, is regularly caffeinated and will never turn down an opportunity to show you cat pictures (she occasionally abuses her power and posts said pictures to Evergreens’s social media).

Amanda Mathis

Volunteer Coordinator

Amanda’s happy place is on a mountain or forest trail and has been for most of her life. Skiing and snowshoeing in winter and hiking the rest of the year. After a long break from running, she put her running shoes back on in 2020 and added her re-found love of running to hiking and equaled trail running. Since then, she has been making up for lost time with this fun sport. Her first trail race was Evergreen Trail Run’s Fidalgo, and to this day, it remains one of her favorites.

Aaron Cervantes

Race Production

After a late start trail running (5 years ago) I’ve fallen hard for it and my life pretty much revolves around trails at this point (not mad about it!) I love spending time anywhere in the mountains but especially the North Cascades. My favorite trail adventure was the Timberline Trail around Mt Hood and my favorite running partner is my dog Sol! Currently training for my first 100M (Cascade Crest!)

Environmental Stewardship

We only have one Earth, and it’s in trouble. That’s why being green is something we care deeply about and we continuously learn and improve the process as we go. If you have any suggestions for optimization please do send it our way! Here is a list of our current efforts:

Our awards are made from salvaged wood.

All of the disposable serving items on race day (cups, bowls, utensils) are compostable.

We provide clearly labelled receptacles on race day for landfill, recycling and compostables.

We use clip on streamers to mark courses that are reused from race to race.

We do most of our communication with the race community electronically via email and online newsletters to reduce paper waste.

We do not provide swag bags for our trail runs.

We produce one event shirt per year for purchase to keep both entry fee and waste low.

We donate to the Washington Trails Association.

“Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

 Chief Seattle