Welcome It started out as a routine day out on the trail.  Sandy Obermeyer on her chestnut stallion Blitzkrieg (OB  Blitzkrieg Bey-Blitzen of Pico x Mariah Bey by Huckleberry Bey) and Peggy Phaklides riding her grey  gelding, Rio Norte (Muirfield x Tamarin V by Desperado V) known to everyone as Norton. They were riding  in the Santa Margaritia/Pozo Wilderness area of California. It was mid-July and the temperature was  around 100F. Their goal was not only to have a good ride, but they were going to clear brush off of a trail  as part of their volunteer work for the forest service. While they were working on clearing the trail, their  horses, who were tied up, spooked at something. Somehow, both horses got loose and disappeared.   Both women were now stranded in a wilderness area on a single-track trail, miles away from their trailer  or any main road.  The temperature was now well over 100F and their water was in the saddlebags-on the  horses. "I thought we would find them pretty quickly", said Sandy.  Although the country is rough, the trail  eventually opens out into open space with grass, and I thought that the horses probably wouldn't go any  farther than that. We started tracking them and following some debris that fell from the saddlebags. Also,  they were trailing their lead ropes, so I didn't think they'd get far." Peggy ended up hiking out about nine miles without water in the debilitating heat. Sandy (who has had 4  hip replacements, one knee replacement and one shoulder replacement) simply could not make it out the  entire way. Peggy managed to get a bike rider to make it to Sandy with some water and then Sandy's  husband, Bill, went in with a horse that she could ride out on.  However, there had been no sign of Blitz  or Norton on the way out.  "We continued to look for the horses that night", said Sandy. My friend's son  even went out on his mountain bike in the pitch dark."  But by morning, the horses were still out there-  somewhere.  "It was so surreal-I didn't even consider that we wouldn't find them", Sandy said. They spent  the next day with a number of riders searching for both horses. "After searching all day, we were just  getting ready to call off the search until the following day, when we found Blitz.  A searcher just  happened to look behind us as we were wrapping up the search and saw him up on a ridge. He never  called out to the horses or came to us and I was riding a mare that was practically a barn mate of his."  LOST IN THE WILDERNESS-A STORY OF LOSS AND OF COURAGE Reprint from Arabian Horse World June 2011