Dipsea: High school trophy named in honor of Hildreth

The Branson School's Farah Allen is riding an incredible wave of momentum since returning to running late in the track season. Now Allen is ready to defend her title as the fastest female high school runner at the Dipsea.

This year, the first high school runner across the Dipsea finish line at Stinson Beach will be awarded with the Wes Hildreth First High School Finisher Trophy.

"I think he'd be humbled on the one hand but on the other he'd hope to inspire these young athletes to achieve excellence in academics as well," Deborah Mills said of her late brother, Wes Hildreth.

The 115th annual Dipsea race is scheduled to take off from downtown Mill Valley on Sunday, June 14, at 8 a.m. The challenging and scenic 7.4 mile course takes the field of nearly 1,500 runners to Stinson Beach.

Hildreth, inducted into the Dipsea Hall of Fame last year, placed fifth overall in three races (1957, 1960, 1962) and finished in the top 10 eight times in 12 races between 1955-1972, and never finished outside the top 25. His best actual time (49:39) came in 1971.

Hildreth, who ran track at Tam High and went on to run cross country at Harvard, was an accomplished USGS geologist. He was killed in a vehicle accident on June 19, 2025 in Nevada.

"Wes wrote about his ‘Dipsea Decade' when he learned to admire and even root for his rivals in the Marin AC, shaving a minute off last year's time or moving up from 20th place last year to 15th place this year," Mills recalled. "He loved the hills and the trails, and then the hills took him to the mountains, and then to the wilderness and to his career."

Some of the fastest high school distance runners in Marin County have thrown their names into the ring for the 115th annual Dipsea this Sunday, including Redwood High cross country standout Gunnar Niemi, who just graduated. Niemi was the fastest male high school runner in the Dipsea last year with an actual time of 55 minutes, 50 seconds. Allen placed 21st overall in 1:03.

Allen placed fifth in the 1600 at the CIF State Track and Field Championship on May 30, just a month after her first race of the season since returning from ankle injuries that had sidelined her.

Other top names include Allen's Branson teammate Hailey Sellers, plus Redwood's Oliver Bush and Gabriel Cavanagh.

For the runner who hoists the inaugural Wes Hildreth Trophy, "I would hope they'd learn more about him," Mills said. "Not just his Dipsea history but his personal achievements which were many. He was a scholar as well as an athlete."

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