"Bärgüf 2021 will be different - more emotional".

In 2016, Patrick Gruber and colleagues from the Lions Club launched the "Bärgüf" charity velo race. The fundraising event from Stalden via Törbel to Moosalp supports people with cancer and is a permanent fixture on the Upper Valais agenda. Corona does not allow large events to be held. In keeping with the motto #gibnitüf, "Bärgüf" will nevertheless take place in 2021 - and it will be more emotional and longer than ever before. We tell the Bärgüf story from the beginning.

Patrick Gruber is a pilot, flying is his daily bread. And yet he is a special pilot, his aircraft extraordinary... Gruber is the pilot of the Federal Council jet. When he takes off, he flies members of the national government or high officials around the world.

Even before his time as a pilot of the Federal Council jet, the air was his element. Gruber flew fighter jets for the Swiss Air Force for many years. Anyone who sits supersonically in an F/A 18 aircraft is used to breaking boundaries and going to the limit. However, Gruber was not at his emotional limit in the air, but on the French Alpe d'Huez.

"Ds lütter Wasser gibrillut."

It was supposed to be a sporting challenge when Patrick Gruber and colleagues from the Lions Club took part in a charity velo race on France's Alpe d'Huez years ago. "We had a strict training plan, healthy food, carbon bikes and a support team on site," Gruber recalls. But what they experienced on Alpe d'Huez was GREATER than sport. The participants in the bike race were pedaling for a good cause - each at their own pace. Some of them rode tricycles that weighed kilograms instead of featherweight carbon bikes.

"We quickly realized that the sporting side of things was secondary," Gruber recalls. What he experienced with his colleagues left its mark on them all. In some cases, people with cancer were driven 1,500 kilometers by ambulance to the course so that they could experience these emotions. Pictures of cancer patients motivate the participants to give even more. At times, participants stopped along the route to lament their fate to complete strangers. "These emotions along the route, moved boundaries for all of us," Gruber describes the experience. "I have the lütter Wasser gibrillut!"

Influenced by these emotions, Patrick Gruber and his colleagues returned to Valais with a firm goal: "We need an event like this in our region, too!" That was the birth of "Bärgüf".

"Bärgüf" helps where there are gaps

The emotions Gruber felt on the Alpe d'Huez are also alive in "Bärgüf." "It's not about being the fastest. It's about doing it!" With these words, Gruber describes how at "Bärgüf" everyone shares a goal and helps each other achieve it: To support people with cancer in some way. "The solidarity we draw from the fundraising events of the past few years is simply staggering," Gruber says. Accordingly, the Bärgüf association can also help where no one else can. On the one hand, Bärgüf helps organizations that support cancer patients. On the other hand, Bärgüf also helps people with individual fates, such as Sandro, for whom a prosthetic leg was specially developed and financed. None of this support would have been possible if the participants had not made the journey from Stalden to Törbel and Moosalp.

This is how "Bärgüf" 2021

Large events are unthinkable in Corona times. "Bärgüf" will nevertheless take place this year - simply different from the previous events, which were last held with almost 1,000 participants. From June 4 to August 28, 2021, participants, alone or in small groups, can plan the impressive ascent from Stalden via Törbel to Moosalp themselves. On foot or by bike. Participants buy a Bärgüf talisman for a donation of CHF 50.00 and take it with them on the tour as a visible symbol. Each individual talisman contains a "lucky charm", which is hung in the Bärgüf wooden frame on Moosalp and distributed to affected persons by the Upper Valais Hospital Center after the event. "The typical Bärgüf goose bumps will therefore also be there in 2021," Patrick Gruber is certain.

Along the way, everyone who sets out fills their talisman with lots of love and emotions, as well as personal thoughts of loved ones or friends who are fighting cancer or have perhaps already lost this battle. What happens along the way is recorded by the participants in stories, audio recordings, videos and photos. Along the route, these thoughts of the participants are collected in analog or digital form at special sites of emotion. "We are convinced that in this way a huge Bärgüf overall experience will be created in the three months, which will strengthen the community and motivate it to peak performance."

On Saturdays during the event, Bärgüf lanterns will be lit by volunteers. A place of hope along the entire route - true to the event motto #gibnitüf!