I was doing a quick Brown El P loop today when I was flagged down by a guy on the trail. His horse had gone over the edge of the trail on Brown Mtn heading down towards El P. The horse went over just after a sharp right hand turn through a wet and muddy stream, and a flat muddy section of trail, with tall grass on both sides. The grass hid the nearly vertical drop at least 50 ft to the bottom.
The horse rider was unharmed, but shaken, and he handed me his phone so I could speak to 911. I explained where we were and we began waiting for help to arrive. We could hear the horse, grunting and thrashing downbelow but it was so steep we could not see the beast.
About 20 minutes later a LACFD helicopter spotted me waving my white jersey. The pilot set it down long enough on a clearing below to let one Firefighter out. This guy was nuts! He came over, checked out the situation and jumped, stumbled, and slid on his ass down the same chute the horse went down.
He checked out the situation and told us the horse was nearly upside down inside the steep canyon. Not a good situation for the horse-or the rescue guys.
Two more rescuers were dropped off by the helo and they slipped and slid down to help also.
By now there was one LACFD helo on the clearing, one in the sky, and two TV news choppers joining the fun. The horse rider's buddies had shown up, on horseback, and there were runners, mtbers, hikers, and dogs passing through.
Another fire dept chopper set down and dropped off about 6 or seven guys and they started cutting a path down to the horse. The sun was beginning to set and I had been out there for over two hours. I had no lights and it was time to go.
I rode out of there without finding out if the horse survived....
