Words & photos by Oliver Maccabez (www.washawproductions.com)

On November the 8th, Glacier 3000 in Switzerland held the first event of the season, the kick-off of the upcoming season; The Monsterpark Invitational. 32 international riders were in attendance, including Henrik Harlaut and his brother Oscar, JF Houle, Phil Casabon, Ritchie Permin, Anders Backe and JL Ratchel. Switzerland was also well-represented on the German side with the Ambuhl Brothers, Andreas Buri and Till Matti and on the French side with the Crewstacez, one of the funniest crews of the moment composed of Florent Beauverd, Carim Bouzenada, Vivian Gex, and Nico Vuignier. All these guys had to fight against each other on the “Big Mama,” a 20-meter long big air, to become the one, the unique, the King of Monsterpark.

The view of the Swiss Alps, and a part of the park on the right.

The Monsterpark Invitational is set as a fight in a knock out system, where two riders confront their tricks one at the time on two separate runs, and the best one takes it to the next level. It seems pretty much easy like this, but where it begins to become tricky is in the drawing lots. On Friday night, all the riders and the Medias were invited to come to the the “rainbow” hotel in Gstaad, real base of the weekend were the drawing took place. And at this game, the most unlucky rider was Florent Beauverd, who was against Henrik Harlaut for the first run. You can imagine his nightmares the night before thinking about the tricks he would need to pull out to try and beat Henrik…

The riders list and the plan of the fights.

When the riders woke up on Saturday morning the sky was clear and the sun was making its way up on the glacier, perfect timing for the organizers who were faced with bad weather during the previous week, where some of the riders tried to come and train themselves but couldn’t due to the bad weather. So it was in a nice and chilly atmosphere that the contest began.

Florent “unlucky” Beauverd had to face Henrik in his first run.



This guy is going to kill it with a huge spin…



Oscar going for the K-Flip.



From the beginning of the contest Anders showed off his stylish octograb.

The first confrontations were easy for some riders, where pros up against some rookie riders like the match-up between Fabio Studer and Janne van Enckevort, and between Henrik and Florent, where Mr. Harlaut didn’t give any chances to his opponent by pulling out a switch 14 mute. For other riders, the first run was a bit harder, like between JL Ratchel and JF Houle, where both riders had to pull out some very stylish tricks to beat his opponent. After the first qualification round, where many different types of tricks were pulled, including as K-Flip from Oscar Harlaut, a switch 10 from Patrick Hollaus, and Phil’s Casabon cork 10 reverse mute, only 16 riders remained. The randomness of the drawing lots made for some interesting confrontations for the second run. The Harlaut brothers were up against each other, and Fabio Studer met his teammate from the European Head freeski team Vivian Gex. This second run (eighth of finals) saw many rotations, mostly switch with switch 7's, switch 9’s, switch 10’s and switch 14’s. On the top of the board, Henrik and JF Houle were making their way easily to the quarterfinals, and on the second part of it, Carim Bouzenada and Yvan Metrailler, both Swiss guys. During the second runs, some nasty clouds decided to cross over the park, and some of them even decided to stay a moment around the Big Mama, obliging the riders to cope with their nerves and the fact that the visibility was quite bad. However the competition had to keep going and some of the riders took advantage of the situation, as a few riders were too short on the landing, perhaps frightened by the heavy fog which was making the evaluation of the distances quite hard to read.

Vivian Gex fighting against his buddy, Fabio Studer.



When the fog suddently appeared, a little painting on the kicker was necessary.



JF seems to take quite well to the fog and turns it into his advantage.

The first of the four battles of the quarterfinals saw a technical Henrik (switch 10 mute) defeat a stylish Patrick Hollaus who pulled out a flatspin 5. At this stage of the contest Henrik seemed to have the ability to go into the finals and win the comp. His tricks were technical, stylish and clean. Perfect. The second battle was between JF Houle and Fabio Studer where JF did his switch cork 9 mute, but it wasn’t clean enough to beat Fabio Studer. The third battle of the quartefinals saw Yvan Metrailler and Richard Permin go against each other. Both of them went for the switch 9 mute, but Ritchie had more the notion of style than Yvan, thus he logically made it to the semi-finals. Last battle to go before the next round was putting together the Crewstacez member Carim Bouzenada against Anders Backe. Carim put all his determination into the fight with a switch bio 10 mute but it wasn’t enough to defeat a very well-inspired Anders Backe who dropped a very clean switch 9 with a beautiful mute. The dice have been thrown and we knew at this point who could possibly go to the finals.

Patrick Hollaus and his flatspin 5.



Carim, one of the Swiss guys from the Crewstacez team doing his favorite switch 10 bio mute.



Yvan in a stylish but classical mute grab.

First semi-final to go, the one between Henrik Harlaut and Fabio Studer, saw again the switch 14 mute of Henrik. Fabio couldn’t do anything, but he tried, and messed up his two runs maybe perhaps due to the high pressure on his shoulders. Easy, much too easy, for Henrik, who took the first spot in the finals. The second semi-final was more questionable with on one side Richard Permin pulling out a switch 9 mute, against the switch 7 octograb of Anders Backe. I guess it was all in the grab and in general the style, as Anders won and joined Henrik in the finals, for the supremacy of the park. And what a final!

Ritchie and his switch 9 mute.



A pretty nice and clean tail grab from an unknown rider.

This year, the winning title “King of Monsterpark” was the name. Just about being the best, the untouchable rider, the one capable of the best and especially of the trick which had never been seen before. I’m of course talking about Henrik Harlaut, who terrified the entire park by bringing out of his trick luggage an enormous switch 16 mute. Yes, you’ve read correctly, a switch 16. Never seen before, and perfectly landed. Nothing else to say, and not even a single possibility for his opponent to match it, even with a nice switch 10 nose mute and a switch 7 shifty. Henrik is the man; he’s the King of Monsterpark.

Henrik going for the switch 1620 mute.



Anders couldn’t do anything against Henrik’s rotation. But he stayed pretty stylish throughout the comp.



Henrik wins the 5000 Swiss Francs and becomes the King of Monsterpark.



All the riders together. Nice atmosphere, and nice complicity between them.

During supper at the “rainbow” hotel all the media and riders were talking about trick of day in a nice ambience, and around 10pm, a few mini-buses took everybody to join the King of Monsterpark party at the “Chlösterli,” a nightclub made in an old farm, so typical but so nice. The pictures of the day and the movie of the King of Monsterpark were shown on the huge screen just on top of the dance floor. Many riders partied during all the night and went back to the hotel quite late in the night.

The Party at Chlösterli Night Club. photo: Sebastien Anex

Sunday morning, when we all woke up, the sky was white and cloudy again, as if the event was the only day where we could ride. Most of the riders engaged in the comp took the day off to move their stuff into the Budokan Chalet; which belongs to Mickael Deschenaux and Dimitri Charrière in Les Diablerets. After giving the keys of the bedrooms back, and checking the bad weather with the ski patrol (windy and visibility up to 8 meters), we took the liberty to join them at the Budokan. Imagine a huge mountain chalet, with many rooms, a bar to spend fantastic nights, a mini snowpark in the backyard and a skate ramp in the associated building. Seems like the perfect place where to chill and spend some time when the weather’s bad. It wasn’t a bad idea at all, since we met Henrik and Oscar, JF, Phil, Ritchie, Vanessa Colletta and a few other riders, and of course the owners Shiest D and Dim Charrière. They’ve created a snow camp company oriented on the freestyle bit, under the name of Demonium Camp. So we spend the rest of the afternoon chilling with them and taking some pictures of Phil and JF shredding the skateboard ramp. The weekend was over but what a nice weekend it was …

JF Houle shredding the skatepark in the Budokan Chalet.

The next edition of Monsterpark will be held on November 5th-8th 2009 and Henrik will have to defend his title with God knows what new trick. We’ll join the party again for sure. See you next year!

Related links: http://crewstacez.com/blog/
The Demonium Camps: http://www.demonium-mc.com