"I rizzed up a goat today."

 What a day we had. We had both the adventures we had planned for and some we had not. As usual since we have been in Switzerland, we had to consider the weather. It was supposed to be clear in the morning, but a storm was going to blow in sometime in the afternoon. We had one more mountain we had planned to explore, so after breakfast we struck out.

Our goal was to explore the Niederhorn which was a mountain up above our Air BnB. We road in the gondola to the top of the mountain to begin our exploration. None of us can get over these mountains. We took an insane amount of pictures. The trail I had found ran along the mountain ridge top. It was a really cool trail with spectacular views the entire time. 

As we began our hike it looked like we were hiking straight into a storm. The clouds were rather ominous and we had left our rain jackets behind. The longer we hiked, however, the more the clouds shifted and we managed to avoid a storm. In fact, it became quite sunny as the day went on.

Cormac insisted on a picture of him "touching" the ibex. After the picture was taken he said, "I rizzed up a goat today." He is not happy that I am making it the blog title, but I thought it was hilarious. He is impressed that I spell rizzed right. As it is a made up word I think there is probably no wrong way to spell it, but then, I suppose all words are made up. 

We met some awesome critters on the trail. The first we encountered was these Ibex. There was a whole herd of them camped out on the cliff tops. We had read that they were up in the mountains, but this was our first encounter. Then we met a bunch of salamanders and tadpoles. We also saw more Alpine Chough birds as well.

As we neared the summit of our mountain we ran into a guy who was preparing to jump off the mountain to paraglide. The girls really wanted to watch and they walked right up close to him, found a rock, and sat down. They were a great audience. He got a good draft at one point and go the parachute up in the air, but then lost the air current. They gasped, clapped, and sighed at all the right places. He was friendly though and was okay with us watching. When he finally got airborne the girls enjoyed cheering him on. He was able to do several loops around and waved at us when he passed. The girls were so happy to have made a friend. We all enjoyed watching him fly.

We had a glorious time frolicking on the top of the mountain. Then we had a tasty lunch before boarding the gondola to head down the mountain to the middle station. These next pictures aren't in any particular order, but are ones I wanted to post for us to remember.

I think this was our favorite hike so far on the trip. We have been on many amazing hikes, but this trail was extremely awesome and we had a great time. We road the gondola halfway down the mountain where we decided to rent some trotti bikes. They are basically large scooters you can put both feet on. We had seen other cruising down the mountain on them and they looked like fun.

We had a wonderful time gliding down the mountain. The day was sunny and gorgeous by this point. The view was incredible. As we road several groups flew past us. I thought we were going fairly fast, but not compared to so many others. We were about 100 feet away from the bottom station where we were to turn in our scooters when Ammon and I saw Azure do the most spectacular flip. She went over her handlebars and I watched as her head hit the ground and the rest of her flipped after. Thank goodness she was wearing a helmet. Some locals were walking up the hill and they saw the whole thing too. 

Azure was obviously upset and in tears, but what was sweet and funny was that Lu hadn't seen the wreck, but as soon as she saw Azure on the ground hurt she burst into tears and was nearly inconsolable. Ammon calmed her down while I examined Azure. She had landed on her face and it was sore, she had wounds on her left shoulder and left hand, left hip, both knees, and both wrists were hurting. She bravely was able to stand and walk down to the station. The way her right wrist looked had me worried. She couldn't squeeze my fingers on that side without extreme pain and I was worried she may have broken it, so we inquired about the nearest hospital and set out for our unplanned adventure.

The hospital was really nice and thankfully everyone we worked with spoke at least some English. Enough that we got by okay. They examined her for concussion and other injuries. They x-rayed her arm and found that she has a fracture in her radius. At the hospital they would only let 1 person go back with her so I stayed and Ammon and the other kids went back to the Air BnB. They told us it would be a long while and they weren't kidding. We did a lot of waiting. While waiting we had fun texting with Cormac and Lu.

We found out while we were in the Emergency Room that Azure was the 12th patient that day from trotti bike accidents. The doctor also told us she was by far the least injured and that it could have been so much worse. We are all very thankful that it isn't worse. She will be in a cast for the next 4 weeks.

She is pretty bruised up, but is taking it pretty well and is happy to have an epic story to go along with her wounds. While in the hospital she remembered what had caused her to crash, she hit a pothole and hit her breaks too hard. We were going along at a pretty good clip by that point. Poor girl.

As tonight is our last night in Switzerland I wanted to record a few more things before I close. Firstly, the kids all unanimously agree that Switzerland is their favorite place we have been so far and wish we had more time here. They have loved the mountains, waterfalls, and all the adventures (apart from the hospital run) that we have had while here. 

We were talking about our experiences here and Ammon also mentioned how fun the various transportation has been. We have been on so many cool trains and gondolas over the past 10 days. The tunnels are all amazing as well. 

Our Air BnB has also been a lot of fun.

We have also found some very fun snacks we have all enjoyed. Especially these cracker/cookie things:

Ammon asked me the other day if Switzerland was what I had remembered and if I was glad I had come back. Definitely. This has been on my bucket list since the first time I spent less than 24 hours in the country. I was in awe of this place as we road the train through the countryside. I have loved being back and having time to really explore. It has been amazing. So if you would like to spend a ridiculous amount of money while seeing some of the most beautiful places on Earth, we recommend Switzerland