Ridecamp: Re: [RC] A horse named Pumpkin

Ok, since the link is not working for some...  The article is printed in the
Durango Herald (http://www.durangoherald.com) and it's by John Peel who is
an excellent writer - and I quote:

"A horse in winter: Can it survive?
March 18, 2002

Jerry Page wound a frozen rope around a tree to secure his horse. He had
hiked a short way from hunting camp to use a cell phone and call a Durango
shop that was repairing his truck.

It was Nov. 13 - a Tuesday, Page remembers. An hour later, after searching
again for that elusive elk along Missionary Ridge, he returned to his horse.

It was gone.

"We looked all that afternoon. We looked all the next day," Page said.

No luck. Page filed a report with the La Plata County Sheriff's Office, then
returned home to Henryetta, Okla., a town 45 miles south of Tulsa, hoping
beyond hope the horse would turn up.

- - -


Kathy Gallegos, left, and Jeanne Scarborough, both of Durango, help take
care of Pumpkin on March 3 near Missionary Ridge. The paint horse was lost
by an Oklahoma hunter Nov. 13.

The Page family bought a young mare in 1990 and named the paint horse
Pumpkin.

Jerry Page's wife died six years ago, and to help pay for funeral bills, he
sold several of the family's horses, including Pumpkin, who had basically
become his son John's horse.

But he always had a mind to get Pumpkin back, and about a year ago he did.
And when it came time to go hunting last fall, he decided to take the
gentle-minded Pumpkin along - despite his son's objection.

"He told me not to take her," Jerry Page said. When the horse got away,
"That about killed me."

A few weeks ago, Jerry Page was preparing to return to Colorado to search
for the horse. When John Page found out, he wasn't impressed.

"He said, 'Dad, that horse is dead.' I said, 'No it isn't.'"

Jerry Page and his second wife's fourth wedding anniversary is March 20, and
he had convinced her to travel to Durango with him.

Then he received a phone call from the La Plata County Sheriff's Office.

- - -

Late Sunday afternoon, Feb. 10, Cy and Jeanne Scarborough, with Rick and
Kathy Gallegos, were snowmobiling - "playing in the powder," Cy Scarborough
said. They were on the east side of Missionary Ridge at 11,200 feet after
covering about 30 miles from their starting point near the base of
snow-covered Missionary Ridge Road.

They spotted a large animal - apparently a mule or horse - on a hillside
along the ridge. With the sun falling, they decided not to investigate.

Mr. Scarborough relayed his find to Ed Zink, and the next weekend, Ed Zink
and his son Tim threw a hay bale on a snowmobile and went searching. With
the Scarboroughs' and Gallegos' tracks still visible, the Zinks soon found
the animal.

A horse.

"It was scared. It ran from us," said Ed Zink.

When Tim Zink cornered the horse against a snowbank and got a hold of it, it
calmed down. The horse had a small area it could move around in, but deep
snow blocked it from going far. It wasn't emaciated but was definitely
skinny. And weak. The saddle, still on after about three months, was loose.

Had it not been a winter with limited snowfall, and had the horse not gotten
stuck on a south-facing slope, the outcome might have been different.

"A quarter mile in any other direction, or any normal year, it would've
starved to death," Zink said.

Snowmobilers, most of whom are members of the San Juan Sledders, began to
visit the horse in droves, bringing hay and pellets of compressed hay and
grain. Fourteen people came to care for the horse Feb. 24.

They stamped down a path for Pumpkin to reach a larger patch of grass,
leading it there with a trail of hay.

"I fell in love with her," said Mrs. Scarborough. "She's just touched all of
us. ... It's just been a wonderful, compassionate event."

Meanwhile, the sheriff's office got word of the discovery. Someone
remembered the lost-horse report, and a phone call went out to Henryetta,
Okla.

- - -

Family relayed the news to Jerry Page: Pumpkin was alive.

"I started crying," he said. "I couldn't help it; I just started crying.

"It just tickled me to death," Page said from Henryetta during a phone
interview last week. "I am so thankful."

The last task, and it may not be an easy one, is to deliver the horse to
salvation. Mr. Scarborough and others plan to attempt it this weekend. They'
ll walk the horse downhill toward Lemon Reservoir, or down an old road on
the west side of Missionary Ridge.

Jerry Page plans to be there with a trailer.

If they can't do it in one weekend, they'll try again. After all, for a
horse named Pumpkin, who wouldn't wish for a Cinderella story?

John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column. Reach him at
jpeel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx .
"

Amber, send an email to John.  He'll know how to contact Jerry Page.

Michelle


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