When Seconds Matter
One high-water creek crossing taught me more about donkeys, family, and the backcountry than any successful trip ever could.
This is a story that has been difficult for me to write.
It happened in 2019, and for nearly seven years I couldn’t bring myself to put the entire experience into words. Even now, I can still hear the snap of the breakaway string, see Darlin’s head disappear beneath the water, and hear my thirteen-year-old son asking a question none of us could answer:
“Why is this happening?”
Every year, my family and I try to take our first pack trip around the Fourth of July. We generally wait until then because of spring runoff. In most years, it is mid- to late June before the creeks are safe to cross. Even a small mountain stream can become a dangerous torrent when the snow begins melting in the high country.
In 2019, Colorado’s snowpack was well above normal. The Rocky Mountains had received much more snow than usual, and the creeks and mountain streams were still running high.
For our first trip of the season, I chose a place I knew well in the West Elk Wilderness. The trailhead was about an hour north of Gunnison, Colorado. From there, it was a five- mile trek to a campsite on the edge of a beautiful meadow beneath a towering mountain with incredible rock formations.
It was a breathtaking place to spend a few days in the backcountry.
I packed four donkeys with our gear. My daughter, Shelby; her husband at the time, AJ; and my son, Cody, followed the pack string on foot with their daypacks.
There were several small stream crossings along the trail and one larger creek. Normally, most of them were only a few inches deep.
That year would be different.
The First Crossing
We crossed several streams that were running a little higher than normal, but none seemed particularly dangerous. Then we reached the largest crossing.
The water was much higher than I had ever seen it.
An outfitter had obviously taken horses through recently. The bank was muddy and well worn where the animals had entered and climbed out. There was only one practical place to cross. Elsewhere, the bank dropped steeply into the water, funneling animals toward a narrow trail at the creek’s edge.
The water reached roughly chest height on the donkeys.
The first three crossed without a problem. My last donkey, Muzzy, hesitated. For some reason, he pulled back and snapped the breakaway string.
I heard the sharp pop.
The current carried him downstream and pinned him against the exposed roots of a huge fallen tree. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to jump into the creek to save him.
Then, suddenly, Muzzy lunged forward and freed himself.
We were all shaken, but relieved. I retied him, gathered the string, and continued down the trail.
We spent two wonderful days at camp. The weather was beautiful. We saw elk, moose, and a huge black bear eating dandelions. We fished for brook trout and enjoyed everything we had come into the wilderness to experience.
For two days, the difficult creek crossing became little more than a memory. Then it was time to go home.
Heading Back
Because Muzzy had pulled back on the way in, I decided to move him farther forward in the string. Instead of being last, he would travel third. I thought having another donkey behind him might encourage him to keep moving.
Behind him was Darlin.
Darlin was a dependable, seasoned mammoth donkey standing about 13.3 hands. She had accompanied me on many pack trips and had carried everything from camping gear to elk and deer. She had crossed countless mountain streams without hesitation.
I never worried about Darlin, regardless of where she was positioned in the string.
Everything went well for the first couple of miles. The donkeys were stepping out nicely, and Shelby, AJ, and Cody followed a short distance behind.
When we reached the large creek, I turned toward the water and looked back to make sure the donkeys were gathered tightly before entering.
For the first twenty yards or so, the water was shallow and moving slowly because the creek had overflowed its banks. Then we reached the main channel near the fallen tree where Muzzy had struggled on the way in.
I stayed as far away from the exposed roots as possible so they wouldn’t catch the pack saddles or panniers.
The first two donkeys crossed. Muzzy followed closely behind them. He wasn’t pulling back. He seemed to be doing fine.
On the opposite side, the trail climbed a steep, sandy hill for ten or fifteen yards. I needed to keep the string moving until we reached level ground but I hesitated a bit to make sure I wasn't moving too fast up the bank. I looked back over my shoulder and...
I heard that familiar sound. Pop!
Muzzy had reached the bank but didn’t like the deep mud at the edge. He stopped and broke away.
That left Darlin standing alone in chest-deep water, directly in the strongest part of the current.
She tried to get around Muzzy, but the trail was too narrow. She pushed against him, which finally motivated him to move. Muzzy made a tremendous leap toward the bank.
As he lunged forward, the impact pushed Darlin backward. Muzzy’s sudden movement also snapped the breakaway on her lead rope.
Darlin lost her footing. She went down.
“Grab the Lead Rope!”
There was nothing I could do. It happened in seconds.
I was still mounted, with the remaining donkeys behind me. I couldn’t abandon the string on the steep bank and jump directly into the creek without risking an even greater wreck. I had to reach a tree at the top of the hill and tie the animals.
Cody was the first person to reach the creek.
Darlin thrashed in the water, trying to right herself. Her panniers kept her from getting her feet underneath her, and her head disappeared beneath the current.
“Grab the lead rope!” I yelled.
I couldn’t even see where the rope was. All I knew was that Darlin’s head was underwater.
“Pull her head up, or she’s going to drown!”
Cody found the rope and pulled.
I tied the string as quickly as I could and ran back down the hill.
People sometimes talk about gaining extraordinary strength during an emergency. We have all heard stories about a mother lifting a car to save her child.
Cody was a skinny thirteen-year-old boy standing on a steep, slippery creek bank with almost no footing. Yet somehow, he was holding a wet lead rope attached to a terrified, thrashing donkey that weighed approximately 750 pounds.
He was the only thing keeping Darlin’s head above water.
I grabbed the rope from him.
I was not prepared for the amount of weight that suddenly landed in my hands. As soon as I took the rope, Cody collapsed behind me.
“Why is this happening?” he cried.
There was no time to answer him.
Fighting the Current
Instead of using the log to cross the creek, Shelby began wading toward us.
When she stepped into the main channel, she gasped as the frigid water rose above her waist and took her breath away.
Darlin had rolled onto her back. All four legs were flailing in the air as she tried desperately to right herself. Shelby appeared ready to reach her and try to push her toward shore.
“Stay back!” I yelled.
One kick from those panicked hooves could have seriously injured or killed her.
Darlin raised her head and lunged with her entire body, kicking all four legs at once in an attempt to move forward. Each time she did, the left side of her head slammed back into the muddy bank.
Her efforts accomplished nothing.
I pulled with everything I had, but I couldn’t move her an inch.
After several attempts, Darlin stopped fighting.
Her head remained above water, but most of her body was submerged. She lay partly on her side, with her legs pointing upstream.
AJ made it across and helped me pull on the rope. Darlin’s head and neck moved when we pulled, but her body seemed lodged against the creek bottom.
We couldn’t move her.
“We have to get the panniers off,” I told him.
I had secured them with a box hitch. We couldn’t reach the knot, and the wet lash rope was far too tight to lift off the lash hook.
“Cut it.”
AJ pulled out his knife and cut the rope.
Even after the lash rope was severed, we needed to remove the entire pack saddle. We tried loosening the latigos, but Darlin’s weight and the force of the current had pulled everything too tight.
“Cut those too.”
Darlin remained motionless.
Donkeys and mules sometimes stop fighting when they sense that continued struggling will cause greater injury. I believe that is what Darlin was doing. The only visible movement was the flaring of her nostrils as she took fast, frightened breaths.
I kept tension on the lead rope and watched her closely, ready to warn AJ if she began kicking again. He was in a dangerous position as he worked beside her body.
Then I noticed blood against Darlin’s white belly. “Where is she bleeding?” I asked.
AJ turned toward me and held up his hand.
His palm had a large, deep gash near the base of his thumb. He had cut himself while trying to free the straps.
For a moment, it felt as though the situation could not get any worse.
The wound clearly needed medical attention, but there was no time to address it. Darlin was still trapped in the creek.
Getting the Gear Off
Somehow, Shelby and AJ freed the panniers and saddle.
They pulled the upper pannier to shore first. As Shelby worked on the pack saddle, AJ released the lower pannier. The current immediately swept it downstream.
Shelby managed to drag the saddle onto the bank. Then she and AJ fought to retrieve the heavy, water-filled pannier.
For a brief second, I saw the saddle pad being carried away in the current. Then it disappeared.
As Shelby and AJ struggled with the pannier, they moved about twenty feet downstream, searching for a place where the bank was low enough to pull it out.
I looked down at Darlin.
My instincts told me she was giving up.
Her ears were hanging sideways. Her mouth was partly open, and her lips had gone limp.
“We have to get her out,” I yelled. “She’s going to become hypothermic.”
The current had moved her six or eight feet downstream from where she initially fell. The bank beside her was now too steep for her to climb. There was no way I could pull a 750-pound donkey back upstream against that current.
Then I saw the place where Shelby and AJ had pulled the pannier toward shore. The bank was lower there.
An idea came to me.
If I released some tension on the rope, the current might carry Darlin a few more feet downstream. Then, if I could time it correctly, I might be able to guide her toward that lower section of bank.
There was no time to explain the plan.
I let the rope go slack.
Within seconds, Darlin’s head went underwater again.
Her instinct to survive suddenly reawakened.
She began kicking and fighting as the current carried her downstream. I ran along the bank beside her, holding the lead rope and trying not to lose my footing.
Just before we reached the lower bank, I planted my feet and pulled with everything I had.
The tension on the rope helped Darlin get her legs underneath her. I was finally able to guide her toward shore.
Her head and shoulders came out of the water. Thank God.
Her legs were folded beneath her, and she lay on her belly looking like a drowned rat. Her ears still hung sideways. Her left eye was packed with mud from repeatedly striking the bank.
But she was breathing. She was alive.
“You Have to Help Me”
Darlin still wouldn’t move.
I pulled on the rope, but her body remained limp. All she needed to do was stand, and she would be free. But she appeared to be in shock.
I reached forward, scratched her neck, and spoke to her.
“Come on, sweetie. You have to help me.”
I backed up and pulled as hard as I could.
Without warning, Darlin found one final surge of energy and shot straight to her feet.
It happened so quickly and I had been pulling so hard that I fell flat on my back. Suddenly, I was staring up at her belly as water poured from her body onto me.
One front hoof landed about an inch from my right ear. The other came down beneath my armpit.
It was a miracle she didn’t step on my head.
Darlin stood perfectly still. I carefully rolled out from underneath her.
Shelby and AJ had managed to get the second pannier ashore. For a moment, all of us simply stood there in shock.
It was over.
Darlin was standing.
I led her around several trees, returned to the trail, and took her to the top of the hill. Her entire body trembled. Her ears still hung to the sides, and mud oozed from her left eye.
But she was on her feet.
The Walk Out
Shelby and AJ began searching through the gear for the medical kit so they could bandage AJ’s hand.
I told them I needed to keep Darlin moving. I didn’t want her standing still for long. I was afraid she might be in shock and could still collapse.
We quickly made a plan.
Shelby and AJ would remain at the creek with the gear. Cody would come with me while I led the animals the remaining three and a half miles to the trailhead.
Once we arrived, Cody would stay with Darlin and Muzzy. I would unload Honcho, ride back to the creek, and help retrieve the abandoned saddle and panniers.
As I traveled toward the trailhead, I finally had time to regain my senses and think about what had happened.
Disaster can strike in a matter of seconds.
There had been no long chain of warnings. Muzzy hesitated at the mud. A breakaway string snapped. Darlin lost her footing.
Within moments, an experienced pack animal was on her back in a freezing mountain creek, and my family was fighting to keep her alive.
We still had half a dozen smaller streams to cross before reaching the trailhead. I expected Darlin to hesitate at every one of them.
She didn’t.
She walked into each stream without resistance and crossed as though nothing had happened.
Apparently, the experience had done nothing to diminish her trust in me or her willingness to cross water.
I, on the other hand, would never look at a mountain stream the same way again.
What Remains
I have replayed that day in my mind more times than I can count.
Should I have turned around when I saw how high the creek was? Should I have searched longer for another crossing? Could I have positioned the animals differently?
Those questions still visit me.
The mountains rarely give us perfect choices. They do, however, remind us how quickly familiar country can become dangerous. A crossing that is only a few inches deep one year can become a powerful obstacle the next. Even experienced animals can lose their footing, and even a well-planned trip can unravel in seconds.
But when I remember that day, fear is not the only thing that comes back to me.
I remember my thirteen-year-old son refusing to let go of a lead rope attached to a panicked 750-pound animal.
I remember Shelby stepping into an ice-cold creek without hesitation because she couldn’t stand safely on the bank while Darlin was drowning.
I remember AJ cutting his own hand as he worked beside a trapped animal, then continuing until the pack saddle was free.
And I remember Darlin.
I remember her lying exhausted and covered in mud, seemingly without enough strength to move. I remember scratching her neck and asking her to help me one more time.
Then I remember her rising.
We ask an awful lot of our pack animals. We trust them to carry our gear, negotiate difficult trails, cross moving water, and follow us into places where a single mistake can have serious consequences.
That day reminded me just how much courage and heart they possess. Darlin crossed every remaining stream on the way out without hesitation. What an amazing animal.
