C-Forum

I had a blast and will post the winner of all the prizes as soon as I get a chance. Havin no exspectation I can truefully say that they were exceded 100 times over.

LouieFest was awesome. It was really cool to see 20 open boats on the Little River in the Smokies. I just wish we had been shooting video at the Sinks.

was sight to behold

Louie

Thank you for showing everyone such a great time, my girl's are already asking to go back next year. What a fantastic week, and from all the Canadian's, you did a great job bringing in the weather

Hopefully there will be a Louiefest 2.

Cheers

Steward

Thanks to you Louis. I appreciate greatly the hospitality.

I had a fantastic time paddling the Tellico with you. Your Baby Falls descent was the most graceful swimming I have ever witnessed.

Please explaine the story about that swim.

Fair enough, Louis.

So, no large steaming pile of dog doo, there we were, staring at the pounding curtain of Baby Falls wondering if the intimidating drop was even runnable. We waited with bated breath to see if the 12 year old girl in the party was going to attempt the descent for surely we weren't about to walk anything she would run. Up steps Louis, hair blowing in the breeze and muscles rippling through his drytop.

"I see a line. I'm so confident that I need not a paddle nor boat for this run," declared Louis to everyone's awe.

Despite all protests for his safety, Louis dived into the ice-cold Smokie Mountain water and swam hard for the lip. Fish gathered in the eddies in admiration of his swimming prowess. As he reached the edge of the falls, Louis tucked gracefully into a dive and dropped, head-first, into the tumultuous pool below with such minimal splash it was worthly of Olympic gold. He surfaced to cheers but brushed them off with his characteristic humbleness.

Tales of his feat are the stuff of Smokie Mountain folklore.

I glad you didn't dress it up with any exzarations, just the truth as most saw it.

Yes, it was a great weekend and many thanks to Louie for organizing this and generous hospitality.

I, for one, have a greatly increased respect for creeking - class III creeking is *not* the same as class III river running. I also see a *decreased* significance of swimming - that certainly seems to be the best form of self rescue in some of those situations I saw this weekend... I hope to step it up a notch next year and at least start at the "girls' put-in".

I've got some pictures on my camera that I will weed through and post sometime this week.

Scott

Andrew and I want to thank you for a great week! A perfect "non-fest". Laid back, fun and great Mexican food! Here's to Lucero and Rosa!

I have to say when I saw Alicia (12 yr old) Al's daughter run Baby Falls in her open boat - well you know I had to ditch the pod and go down in the Taureau

Katie has some great pics that she will send. We have to edit the video and send you some clips.

Nothing like running a creek with 9 Taureaus!

Cheers!
Carole

I loved running Big South Fork Sunday with so many small plastic canoes. I am often the only canoeist on the rivers I run and in an even smaller minority when I am in my superfly, yet Sunday I got to paddle with 11 other canoeists (and one kayaker), including five in small plastic playboats like mine, Spanish Flies and a quake. Ironically these guys knew Louie but had not yet attended Ain'tLouieFest.

Paddling Section IV with four other OC and C boaters was also a high point. Thanks to Louiefest I had plenty of folks to paddle with on my week's vacation. I hope to schedule next year's spring vacation at the same time. Thanks Louie for a great event!

Thanks to you Louie,
It sure was nice to have a warm place to gather at. I have wanted to run the Little for a long time and to get to do it with a bunch of the best open boaters in the world was a very rare treat. Getting to follow Baily, Jeff, and Dan down a creek is always fun and Dooley is just amazing.
I met a lot of great folks and made some new friends I hope to paddle with again.

Many thanks Louie,

Dennis Jones

Orange and Yellow Prelude

Awesome week, awesome paddling, mediocre people...


Just kidding, awesome people too. I hope to see the German (Falk) back in the states again.

All I can say is: what time next year will this shindig go down.

When it rains, I'll be calling you Louie. Looking forward to a tropical depression to come through

I just arrived home to freezing cold and snow on the ground. I'm pretty beat up from the flight but before I get some rest I wanted to thank everyone at the LouieFest for your company, your warm welcome for a Kraut and for all the boats I got to paddle.

8 days of boating and I only paddled the Zoom twice, all the other runs were done in different boats.

Especially thanks to Scott who brought the Rockit (and was the first to reply to my post about available boats). Thanks to Doug, Cory, Eli for being allowed to paddle your boats (I tried not to leave too much paint on the rocks). Thanks to Craig, Dan, Shawn, Dave, Randy and Steve with the red Ocoee (and the good music) for driving me to and from the river.
Big cheers to Shawn and Dan who felt responsible for breakfast at the Hall, to all the C-Ladies who were a sight on the river and off and all you paddlers out there who attended and made this so special.

Last but not least: Thanks Louie for your hospitality, for all the good yarn about boating long gone and present, for the cosy Banquet Hall and all the organising. You're the man!

I'm still trying to get my pictures organised, I'll soon post a link...

Well it's all been said before in the previous posts, but thanks man.
You did a great job of accomodating everybodys boating wants. Memories of the treemont on friday(how do you spell that anyway) got me through the long drive back to -15 C and snow. 'course we had to stop on the way to spend my poker night winnings:-)
Later
Paul
ps.ain't Louiefest T-shirts will remain available online for a while yet.
go to http://bubblestreet.ca/t-shirts_.html