My Blind Trip

In 1978 while vacationing in Hawaii with my wife we thought it would be fun to take a Mule ride down the Leper Colony trail in on Molokai. My wife was an experienced rider but I could count the times that I had ridden a horse, or mule, on one hand.  I requested the oldest laziest mule in the barn.

A Hawaiian man brought out a very docile and loving mule named “Valentine”.  We got mounted and started down the trail and everything was fine.  Valentine was moving along great. About 10 minutes into our decent, the guide looked back at me and said: “Hey Bobby isn’t Valentine amazing? She is totally blind and does not miss a beat”. He appeared dead serious and fear soon set in.

“Can we go back?” I asked the guide.  He informed me that there is no way to go back and I explained that if he helped me off I could crawl back up the short distance that we had gone down the trail.  The guide told me that there was no way I could get off now that we had started. 

As I looked down into the canyon, approximately 1700 feet below, I looked for a place that I could land.  There wasn’t any so was this how it would end?  Mules, like other equines, often stumble as they go down the steps on the trail.  But dear old Valentine, who could not see, could not possibly know which way to head when she stumbles.  Each time she stumbled or maybe it was each time she picked up her foot I knew that we were going over the edge.  Each step I tried to pick out some vegetation or a rock that I could grab and hang on to.  I kept wondering if I could hold myself dangling there until they threw me a rope.  Could they get the rope close enough that I could grab it?  Could I let go long enough to grab it?

To make a long story short what seemed like an 18 hour trip down to the Leper Colony really only took 1 1/2 hours.  I will never understand how Valentine managed to find her way down this trail.  Whether it was by sense of feel, or smell or just knowing where the other mules were and following them, it gave me a whole new prospective of Mules.

 

Could a horse do this?

Bob Barns

PS:  I think your web site is great and I love your organization and what you are doing for Mules.

Bob Barns and Valentine, Molokai 1978