Happy Birthday Loulou!

My good friend Loulou Kneubuhler lives in Spokane, Washington and is turning 72 today. He's one of those quintessential Frenchmen who, in the sixties, went all around the world proselytizing the French ski technique on the heels of the French ski team impressive victories.

From his young stomping grounds in St Jean de Maurienne, Savoie (a part of the Alps that isn't really France), where he raced with Jean-Claude Killy as school boy, Loulou first landed in 1966 at Spout Springs, a tiny Oregon ski area prior to coaching at White Pass near Yakima, and before stopping for good in Spokane during the winter of 1968-69. In between, he found time to explore Australia and “sell” a few more turns at Mt. Buffalo, not far from Melbourne.

Back in Spokane, he eventually opened up a ski repair shop in 1973 and the rest would be history. “Loulou’s of Spokane Ltd” was set to become a trendsetting store where the best brands in fashion and equipment were offered to the ski public. 

Loulou’s hard goods expertise was balanced by Arlette Mohr’s talents with soft goods. She had previously managed the fashion shows and models for The Crescent Hotel in Spokane, before worked closely with LouLou, her significant other, and also running BooBoo's clothing. 

Of course, Loulou was also one of my retailers when I sold him gear during my days in the ski business and I'll never forget his inventiveness, wheeling his paperwork and catalogs in a carrying box around the Las Vegas ski show, long before luggage on wheels was invented.

After selling his shop a few years ago, Loulou still had the stamina to open up a ski museum at his original ski chalet in Spokane. So here you have it, Loulou has an unstoppable passion for skiing, and 72 perfect turns deserve at least another 28 great ones. If we follow his dedication, we may all finally become - as his TV commercials once said - “a Loulou of a skier!”