What a great weekend!! What a great group of paddlers! Thank you for your hospitality, Brent and Christine, what a nice place you have. Debbie and I really like the Pigeon River and we look forward to paddling it again.
Fred and Debbie

Fred

Fred and Debbie, the pleasure was all ours. Noticed the Pigeon ran today but we had a big time on the Nanty. Several first time runs on the Nanty Falls, and I believe everyone's game was advanced this weekend. Food was awesome and the camaraderie fabulous. Thanks to everyone that came and helped and/or participated in any way. Just a great weekend.
Brent

Brent,
As always, you and Christine were great hosts. Thanks for everything, it was a great weekend. Too bad the weekend only last two days.

Allen

Ditto for us. Had a great time. Thanks for the hospitality, Brent. Thanks for the coaching, Barry.

Conner had a blast, but he wore himself out. He slept most of the way back and most of yesterday afternoon.

Don:
Conner is a great dog. He can come visit us anytime for sure.
Brent

Brent, thank you so much for your hospitality. The accomodations were great, the food was great, the company was great!

I, too, look forward to running the Pigeon, again. The lower Pigeon is a nice place to practice fundamentals, and I heard lots of comments that there are some good surf spots. Once I get those fundamentals down, I'm interested in doing the upper Pigeon, based on the descriptions I heard. The shuttle is easy and Hartford seemed to welcome paddlers.

The Nantahala is definitely a river I'll not run on a Sunday when I have to work on Monday! It was brutal to get home so late and wake up so early! Besides the abrupt beginning to the run (flip, swim, lost paddle @ Patton's Run), I liked the continuousness of the river and enjoyed paddling it. Next time, I hope to run the Falls.

Thanks to all who offered pointers to me both days (Bethany was a great trip leader on the Pigeon and the 6s were great to follow down the Nanty). Thanks, especially go to B6 and Jeff K for hopping in their boats and chasing down my paddle!

Thanks for hosting Brent, and thanks for a great weekend everyone!

-Megan

Brent, Christine: Thanks so much for hosting us. I knew it would be great - remembering your awesome setup there in the Smokey's. Wish I had a visual on some of the entertainment Sat. night ;-) (I was too shattered to attend), but I certainly enjoyed being lulled to sleep by the drum beats. The potluck was outstanding. Too bad we were so short on meat (irony there - haha). Thanks also to Bart, the man at the grill, who endured the heat and the withering questioning ("Is the chicken and pineapple kabob ready yet?") And the vegies were great, too - with history behind them and everything! - Thanks Katrina.

What an outstanding crew to paddle with! I experienced everything ranging from surfing lessons from B6, to an up-close view of two successive rolls in Nanty Falls (way to go, Pat!), to witnessing the awesome endurance and perseverance of the rollers and swimmers all weekend.

This should become a new old BWA tradition.
Chris S

Chris Schardl

Thanks Brent and Christine - you guys are the best campground hosts in the paddling universe! Your cool camping spot in the TN mountains really set the stage for an epic weekend of paddling and partying. The pot luck breakfast and dinner turned out great, Katrina's massages and fire stick performance were a hit and It was incredible to see so many BWA paddlers filled with high energy whitewater spirit.

It was a personal 1st D for me on the lower Pigeon. A fantastic class II float with some fun surf in the second half of the run - the L.P. is a near perfect stretch of water for novice/beginner / family paddlers. Congrats to all my fellow newby surfers on your wonderful enthusiasm and to all you graduates of the spring clinic who had such fine lines and solid combat rolls on the upper Pigeon.

The Nanty, as usual, continues to exhilarate, intimidate and... masticate. Judging from the sharp pain and deep purple color of my little toe I think either broke or severely sprained it while scrambling around on the rocks of Patton's Run. No big deal (I can still boat and, thanks to Mike the paddle was rescued!) but I also heard that someone had an ankle in much the same shape after a nasty swim? Hope all is well on that score.

Chris S I second that suggestion - I really would love to see this summertime intermediate clinic weekend become the start of a new tradition in the BWA.
barryg

alright noobies! sounds like a very successful trip. any highlights worthy of a trip report write-up? pics and video? was there a head count to make sure no one was left in an undercut?

The Nanty is such a great beginner river. eddy hoppin, raft dodgin, and the Falls finale. good times.