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(Transport, Piste, Skipässe)!

 

 

It all began on a dark and stormy night during the long winter months of 1986...

...huddled around a candle-lit table with several bottles of Tequila - the Triftji Bump Bash was born. The idea: a fun race/event on the 3000 meter high glacier of Triftji - one of Europes best ski runs. Poor weather and a lack of organizing experience caused this first event to be labeled an experience.

More than 15 years later, the number of people who come to participate in the race has increased 5 to 10 times, and the event has expanded to cover three days - but the fun, relaxed - and a bit crazy - atmosphere has remained from those first years.

Those of us organizing the Triftji Bump Bash have tried to remain true to our initial philosophy: A FUN race for everyone, with lots of prizes, lots of skiing (boarding, whatever...) & parties - and a great T-Shirt.


 

  

In the beginning.
Jürg Biner refuses to help: "At 3000 meters, without any organizational experience, no budget and only two weeks to make it happen? You're nuts! O.K., I'll organize the generator for you, but that's it." After the race is over, Jürg is bringing the generator back to it's rightful owners - but he takes a corner with to much speed (with the Hotel Biner Electro Mobile), and the 30kg. generator grows wings. Damage to the generator 100%, damage to Jürg's wallet: SFr. 2'500.-

For some strange reason, a lot of the competitors came back the next year (even Jürg).

 

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Almost perfect - the 2nd TBB
Blue skies, big bumps, soft snow, and less than 40 competitors, made the second Triftji Bump Bash a lot of fun. Chris organized more or less the whole thing single handedly (Chris Patient helped to untangle the course ropes - an entire day's work at Rote Nase!). This year's generator doesn't function at all, and Skip, the music man, ends up running his stereo 400 meteres below the top of the ski lift (using a bunch of extension cords). No music on the course, but the top of the lift is Rockin'.
 
   

 

  

The Bump Bash & Swiss Championships
Over the course of two weeks Triftji is the center of the Swiss Freestyle scene. Chris cheerfully takes the news from Jürg (who's calling on the phone from the U.S.A.), that in addition to the Bump Bash, that the Swiss Championships will also be happening on the same weekend - on Triftji!

1988 is also the year of the "Ultimate" mogul course: 250 meters long and up to 35 degrees steep at 3000 meters. It often happens that a competitor has to stop 50 meters before the finish line (with tounge hanging) to grab some more air before continuing!

NOTE: This was the first year that a "small" rock (about 20x40cm) forced us to move the course about 15m to the right (looking upwards). Little did we know that this "rock" would grow into the huge cliff it is now - aaah, those good ol' days...

 


   

 

  

The birth of the Mogul Murhpy gang.
The scarry looking mogul cartoon, who is mostly interested in the ski tips of insecure mogul skiers. The T-Shirt is almost a bigger hit than the race itself (even if Chris misspelled "freinds" on the first 50 shirts, and had to reprint them 'till 4 a.m.).

The event itself is a huge success, but the day after the finals (those damn Mondays!) turns out to be a beutiful ski day - leaving Chris, Jürg and a few other unfortunate souls to transport 2 tons of material back up the T-Bar, over the Rote Nase, and Hohtäli cable cars, and finally down the Gornergrat train, back to Zermatt.

We must have had a good time, as we all turned up the following year for more!

 



   

 

  

Piece of Cake
Two competitors show up on sleds, starting a new Bump Bash tradition, that in later years is continued with 2 meter inflatable beer bottles, inner tubes, etc...

More than 100 competitors take part.

 

   

 

  

Mogul Murhpy Gang
The first parapelegic takes part in the Bump Bash (it later turns out to be the popular Swiss Politician Marc Sutter). Marc survives the bump run without any problems, although his sled looked a bit worse for wear.

The special prizes are made out of wood, with an engraved plaque. On some of them Chris has created sculptures out of hundreds of pipe-cleaners. The prize for the oldest competitor is an old skiier in a wheelchair - but it remains unclaimed at the prize ceremony. Later that evening Jürg gets a phone call from the oldest competitor asking if he can pick up his prize - 5 minutes later he shows up in front of Jürg's door - it's Marc Sutter - in his wheelchair. Behind his back, Jürg quickly pulls the pipe-cleaner wheelchair skier from the trophy.

The "Mogul Murhpy Gang" makes it's first appearence on the Bump Bash shirts.

   

 

  

The Bump Bash & Slalom Smash
Not everyone remembers the first Mega Party in the Triftbachhalle (could it have something to do with our inexperienced bartenders, who sold 4cl shots of Tequila instead of 2cl??? More than 130 bottle of Tequila meet their end at this party.), but everyone remembers the Slalom Smash - called into being by Denny Bohn - a tattooed, hippy original from San Francisco. At the end of the Slalom race, the course looks like the bump run.

Using 50 kilo sacks of "Snow Cement", Denny tried to put a hard finish on the meters of fresh snow on Triftji. The first sack escapes Denny and a helper half way to the start of the Slalom run. The second sack was transported to Rote Nase by Chris, Jürg and Ali. Chris said "Wait here a second, I just want to buy a Mars bar". When he returned two minutes later, he found Jürg and Ali staring down the huge Triftji mogul hang. From their feet was a 1 meter wide blue strip that marked the path of the runaway sack of "Snow Cement". A woman skiing several hundred meters below Jürg and Ali had luck, she heard Jürg and Ali screaming above (get out of the way!), and thought that they wanted her to try and stop the sack of "Snow Cement" - fortunately, despite her best attempt - she was to slow to put herself into the path of the hundred pound plastic express.

The "Snow Cement" sack walks off with the trophy for the "Fastest" run. Bernard Brandt wins the race with the highest and longest jumps ever seen on a mogul course (15 meters high and 35 to 40 meters long!!!). There might still be a foto of one of his jumps hanging in the North Wall Bar.

 

   

 

  

Inflatable Beer Bottles
A blind skier (with companion) takes part in the Bump Bash, as well as two slightly derranged individuals on large inflatable Tuborg Beer Bottles (fast, but not much direction contol).

Almost 300 people sign up to compete, and the prize ceremony has to be postponed.

 
 
   

 

  

Bump Bash Bunnies
A full article with lots of color photos appears in the German edition of Penthouse. The author is Curt Lammerer, a participant over many years. Mad Mogul Murphy feels at home between these many warm moguls.

 
   

 

  

Surprise Victory
During the 9 year history of the Bump Bash, there have only been 3 different victors - namely: Bernard Brandt, Petsch Moser and Jürg Biner (all vice-world champions!). In this year everything changed. Petsch was suffering from a flu, and was knocked out of the competition early, Bernard and Jürg were not competing - so the path was clear for Ali Avdi (from Macedonia), who 7 years earlier started working at Hotel Biner - without any skiing experience. After Jürg's silver medal at the 1989 World Championships Ali only had one goal in his life: to become a world class mogul skier. In his first three Bump Bashes, Ali wins the prizes for "Slowest Run", "Worst Run" and "Biggest Crash". All the hard work pays off this year though, Ali beats all the world cup skiers to take the title!
   

 

  

Boom Box
Helpers from previous years should find this story interesting: Chris has the stereo system checked (the complete system weighs in at 1 ton!), and it's discovered that the four Bass boxes have been broken since the December 1991 World cup race in Zermatt! In other words, we dragged the damn bass boxes up and down for years, without them producing more sound than a car stereo. Oh, well (the joys of organizing the TBB).
   

 

  

And then there were four...
Helper drought. At the initial helper meeting there is shock - "What? Only four of us? Last year we were at least twelve!" Marco and Jürg try and sooth: "Don't worry, if we run out of time, we won't put up the fencing". The force is with us, and the course gets set up more quickly and easily than in previous years (might also have something to do with it not snowing two meters or having 160 kilometer per hour wind blowing everything away the night before the race starts!).

   

 

  

The saga of Stephen
Professional Helper Stephen Häberli puts himself onto his bicycle in the evening gloom and departs St. Gallen in the direction of Zermatt (for those of you who don't know Swiss geography, St. Gallen is in the very north, and Zermatt in the very south - with lots of big mountains in between). Stephen spends the night sleeping in the waiting room of a train station, and catches the morning train through the Furka tunnel to Wallis. The fact that it has just snowed on the Wallis side of the tunnel only slows Stephen down a bit, and he arrives (a bit tired) on time at the first helper meeting.

The course set-up runs smoothly (heh! two years in a row!), and Stephen finds time to build a snow cave into the finish area colluseum. The night is long and very cold, as Stephen couldn't convince any of the female helpers of the virtues of high altitude Triftji snow caves (I can hear Stephen still: "Just think of the beautiful sunrise. You wouldn't want to miss that, would you darling?").

Racer ready: Three, Two, One - Go! The spectators all look up to the start, but Stephen takes off from the finish line - loaded with Hotdogs and Gluhwein for the helpers at the start - he runs UP the mogul hang, thus taking the prizes for both the Slowest and the Strangest run. For the next half an hour, Stephen is unusable as a helper.

Petsch Moser does a talented strip tease at the 7th Mega Party to celebrate the end of his active world cup career.

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Pea Soup
Everything went great until the Finals. Our old friend the weather decided that a nasty fog bank would be the appropriate way to celebrate the final run for the men and women. Well there was still plenty of time, so everyone waited, and waited, and waited. Then suddenly a patch of blue sky appeared in the dense white stuff, everyone scrambled to get ready before the fog rolled back in. "Racers Ready" yelled the M.C. over the microphone - but wait - where are the judges??? In a stroke of brilliant timing, the judges had all decided that now was the perfect time for a quick pee, (we've waited half an hour for this damn fog, can't wait any longer!) and by the time they had their flys re-zipped, and were back in their seats - the fog had again reduced visibility to Zero.

Well, we managed to complete the race. Fun was had. 'Till next year.

   

 

  

15th TBB Anniversary!
Who would have guessed that after 15 years, we'd still be doing this crazyness?

he event was fantastic! About 150 competitors had a great time skiing on big, soft powder bumps. Great weather (yes!), great atmosphere (a lot of spectators in the finish area 'Arena'), Sparky's Hotdogs, the Mega Party back in the Triftbachhalle (with a live band), and last, but not least, an incredible crew of people helping to organize the event itself.

The Mega Party IX (2000) page
If you are still trying to piece together what happened on the night of the last Mega Party, this might help to 'jog' your memory!

A New TBB Web site!
As we are forever searching for ways to make our lives more complicated than they already are, Chris Banford decides that the TBB web presence needs a "little touch-up" - he's still working on it...

If you're interested, you can check out the previous TBB web site. It's got some interesting information that hasn't yet made it over to these pages (Chris says: "I promise I'm working on it.")


   

 

  

16th TBB - Mogul Murphy breaks out

For the 16th time mogul freaks from everywhere (except from behind the moon) get to Zermatt only(special) for TBB: 170 participants! The weather is very good, but sunday fog shows up and some snow-flakes obstruct the view of both spectators and competitors. But has ever a Bump Basher let the weather destroy his great mood? Jürg does the highest jump of his life! Congratulation!

The helpers team has grown for this year (we want to start the new millennium in a great way), nevertheless they work from quite early in the morning until very late at night. New at TBB 2001: "Fondue-Stangen" and "Glühwein" at the infohouse (mmmmmh...)