Pack Animals Rescued After Slipping Off Trail

Los Angeles County firefighters pulled two donkeys, a mule and a horse to safety Saturday after their pack train slid off a trail and down an 80-foot embankment the night before.

Rescuers brought in a helicopter to hoist the sedated horse, which had suffered cuts and facial fractures and was too weak to walk out on its own, to a road near the Chantry Flats campground, Fire Capt. Mark Savage said. The U.S. Forest Service and a Sierra Madre search and rescue team participated in the effort.

At 5 p.m. Friday, the pack train was returning from bringing supplies to 80 cabins tucked about two miles back from the road when one of the animals slipped off the trail, dragging the others with it. They were attached to one another by a rope, Savage said.

“They were in a very difficult position on an outcropping, with a significant drop below them,” he said, adding that rescue personnel decided not to attempt to retrieve them immediately and sent in veterinarians, who spent the night with the animals.

Fire crews lifted the two donkeys and the mule up to the trail Saturday morning.