2025 Race Planning is Happening Now!
THE 67th ANNUAL MOTHER'S DAY WHITEWATER FESTIVITIES & RACES Will be May 9-11, 2025 on the rio grandE in Beautiful Pilar, nm. RACES WILL BE sATURDAY MAY 10
Online REGISTRATION WILL OPEN EARLY 2025
full schedule TBD
Main race organizing will be at Quartzite.
Thank You to Our 2024 MDR Sponsors!
2019 EVENT Schedule
(all photos by Britt Runyon)
Friday May 8
4:00pm | Campground Opens
7:00pm | Dutch Oven Cook Off (Dishes Ready at 7pm!)
Saturday May 10
8:30am | Volunteer Meeting
9:00-9:45am | Day-Of Registration
Please Note: for 2020, Day-Of Registration prices are going up, so register early!
10:00am | Downriver Races Start (Long/Short Kayak, SUP, Canoe)
11:30am | Slalom Races Start (Kayak, Canoe, SUP)
1:00pm | Downriver Rodeo/Freestyle (location TBD based on flows)
3:00pm | Family Race
5:00pm | Downriver Race Start (R4/R6)
7:30pm | Awards and After Party
Sunday May 11
9:00am | Community Racecourse/Taos Box/Other Runs Paddle (Self-Organized)
Celebrating 63 Years of
Mother's Day Whitewater Races
The Mother’s Day Races were founded in the 1950’s by Los Alamos paddle boater and LANL employee, Jim “Stretch” Fretwell. After competing at Colorado’s FiBark for many years, Stretch decided to start a paddle race closer to home on the Rio Grande, now known as the Pilar Racecourse. The races were supported by Los Alamos’s Explorers: Post 20, The Atomic City Citizens Band Radio Club, The Los Alamos Fire Department to name a few. By the late 1960’s, an estimated 2000 spectators leap frogged their way downstream on Highway 68 to watch rafts and kayaks twist and turn through the whitewater.
Stretch eventually handed it over to the Adobe Whitewater Club who valiantly ran the races for over thirty years until they handed it over to NMROA in 2008. This year the Adobe Whitewater Club is working to expand the races and welcomes spectator, racer and sponsor enthusiasm and support!