'Iconic Tulsa fixture': Raft race returns after 5-year hiatus (2024)

Tulsa’s Great Raft Race returned Monday after a five-year hiatus.

It could not have gone better: big crowds, temperatures in the mid-60s in the morning reaching the mid-80s by afternoon, and 100 rafts in the water, about 60 of which were strung together by the rafters themselves.

“We don't ticket it, so it's hard to say, but there's definitely, I mean, there's definitely thousands of people out here,” said Seth Erkenbeck, executive director of the Great Raft Race.

Erkenbeck was standing among the crowd of spectators who gathered at River West Festival Park on the west bank of the Arkansas River to great the 500 participants at the end of their voyages.

His day started early in Sand Springs, where the rafters and kayakers launched from the Case Community Park.

“I think we had one of the biggest crowds ever in Sand Springs,” Erkenbeck said. “We had some really fun rafts launching and a ton of spectators.”

The Great Raft Race was revitalized by Erkenbeck and TYPros (Tulsa's Young Professions) in 2015 and operated uninterrupted until COVID-19 and other factors put a halt to the annual Labor Day event.

It was brought back this year as part of the four-day Big Dam Party celebrating the opening of the renovated Zink Dam, Zink Lake, Williams Crossing and Tulsa Wave Park.

It was the event’s deep roots in the community— it began in the early 1970s— that brought out Jeremy Upshaw on Monday.

”It’s an iconic Tulsa fixture,”Ushaw said. “When my dad was growing up around Tulsa, the raft race was part of the culture.”

Upshaw said he does “a little bit of competitive kayaking,” and that would be a good way to describe his performance on Monday morning.

As best he could tell, he and his 21-foot-long carbon fiber boat were the first to finish the race, in an unofficial time of 1 hour and 4 minutes.

So good was his time, Upshaw said, that he had to go out and help a new friend he made Monday, Johnny Williams, who finished a few minutes behind him.

“I was shooting for under an hour, so I think they're gonna, they're gonna adjust our times,” Upshaw said.

Erica Polson, 39, was done with the race by shortly after 10 a.m. and spent the next couple of hours seated in the sun listening to music and taking in the vibes.

“It started off quite smooth,” Polson said of her trip in her small green plastic kayak. “And then, of course, Mother Nature does what Mother Nature does. It got quite windy at some point in time. But the volunteers at Case Park, I mean, just bar none, just super, just great people, super kind, super helpful.”

It was the third time Polson, who once finished third in the race, made the trip from Vinita.

“Tulsa has it all,” Polson said. “In fact, I run half-marathons, marathons, 5Ks, triathlons. So, I come here all the time.”

No one had a better view of Monday’s race than the Musgrove family. Maryellen Musgrove and her children, Holly, 14, Jack, 11, and Keith, waited for their father, Cameron Musgrove to arrive with their uncle, firefighter Gary Stika.

“I think it's a cool event,” Holly Musgrove said. “I like the snow cones. They got good music playing. The weather's really nice.”

She had words of praise for well.

“I like the Big Dam Party that's going on Gathering Place kind of parallel,” Musgrove said. “I think the rubber duck theme is super cute.”

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