By Rosemary Howe Camozzi

Photos by Laura Goss and En-Min Chang

At a secluded spot deep in Oregon's Three Sisters Wilderness, a full moon illuminates a quiet campsite. Dinner is over, songs have been sung and campers have bedded down in their tents. Horses move around quietly in their corrals, an occasional whinny breaking the silence of the night. Celeste, who has had a sleep disorder since her head injury six years ago, has no trouble sleeping tonight, comforted by the sounds and smells of the horses.

In the morning, as she awakens to the smell of coffee cooking on the campfire, she hears a roar from a nearby tent. Bob, the wilderness packer who has volunteered his time and mules for the trip, appears in the doorway. "Somebody's gonna be dead!" he bellows. The other campers look sleepily at him as he stands in his white socks. "There's two things you never steal from a cowboy. You don't steal his horse and you don't steal his boots!"

A couple of campers giggle, but no one says a word. Celeste hopes he's not as serious as he looks. She stole the boots, but she's already passed them off to someone else.

Early the next morning, two campers wake from a peaceful sleep as their tent suddenly collapses on top of them. Bob has had his revenge.

This group of campers is no ordinary one. Most are bound by physical limitations that make camping beneath the steep mountain face of Three Fingered Jack seem inconceivable. But thanks to the work of two sisters, the impossible has become possible.

Kerrie Knaus-Hardy and Sue Rosen direct a program called Horseback Outdoor Recreation, Specialized Equipment and Services (HORSES). This program gives people with disabilities such as autism, blindness, paraplegia and cerebral palsy the chance to develop riding skills and build self-confidence. "A lot of times when you have a disability, there are a lot of things in your life you can't control," Sue says. "But when you're with an animal, you have a great relationship and you have a sense of power and control."

"It's incredible," says one rider with cerebral palsy. "I'm sitting on this great animal that has strong muscles and four good legs. My disability goes away."

The HORSES ranch sits on ten acres at the top of a ridge off Crooked Finger Road near Scotts Mills, Oregon. Outside its weathered barn on a cold spring morning, thirty horses graze under towering Douglas firs. Their coats, from milk white to cinnamon brown, add an extra note of color to the rich hues of Oregon mountain soil, damp and glistening from a winter of rain.

Opening the barn door, visitors are greeted by the smell of leather and the sight of dozens of gleaming saddles hung neatly on log posts. In the hallway leading to the office hang bridles, each with a label: Bucky, Brumby, Blueberry -- Misty, Nimbus, Nicole ...

Kerrie works at her computer at the end of the hall. She pauses for a moment and glances out the window, remembering the summer she was 8 years old.

Her mom had gone to work and Kerrie sat watching Sue canter around the field on a neighbor's pony. Born with muscular dystrophy and confined to a wheelchair since the age of 3, Kerrie had never ridden a horse. The closest she had come was when Sue would stack up Grandpa's wooden planter boxes and lift Kerrie on top; they would ride boxes all day long.

But on that particular day, Sue decided it was time for Kerrie to try the real thing. "I found an old Formica kitchen chair," Sue says. "I put it on the saddle and tied the saddle strings around the legs to hold it on. Then, I lifted Kerrie up and tied her on with a dish towel -- one of those old white ones that Grandma always had." The towel barely fit around Kerrie's waist, but for the two fearless sisters, it was good enough. Sue led the pony in a triumphant circle around the field. "We didn't know it, but we had just invented our first adaptive saddle," Kerrie says with a laugh.

They rode secretly many times after that until other interests took Kerrie away from riding. But her love of horses never faded. Although she moved to southern California to attend college, Kerrie visited Sue in Oregon as often as she could. "It was like coming from a desert to a fountain, a garden of Eden," Kerrie says. "It made me start thinking about my life as an alter-abled person. It requires so much stuff -- electric wheelchair, specially designed vans, all my equipment -- I realized that I lived in a mechanical, artificial environment."

The sisters talked about the possibility of Kerrie riding again, but therapeutic riding teachers told Kerrie she shouldn't even think about it. "But I consider myself an adult making informed decisions about my own safety," Kerrie says. "Besides, I was looking for recreation, not more therapy." Sue offered to train a horse for Kerrie. They bought a 10-month-old filly named Brumby who was sensible, people oriented and confident. Sue spent the next few years training her, and Kerrie visited from San Diego whenever she could.

In late December 1985, the horse was ready. On New Year's morning, with a blanket of fresh snow on the ground, Kerrie sat in a custom-made saddle and rode Brumby for the first time.

Kerrie was thrilled to be back on a horse, but she wanted more. "My goal was to be able to ride in the canyons, hills and mountains. I wanted to be able to watch a waterfall, fish in a stream, see a herd of elk in the morning fog." In 1988, she gave up the fast pace of southern California and bought a ranch near Sue's family in Oregon. Owning one horse and a Shetland pony, the sisters decided to start their own recreational riding program. As they began, they consulted with experts in the field. "We were like lepers," Kerrie says. "They told us we were stupid and that everyone would be killed." But Sue and Kerrie didn't understand the meaning of the words "you can't do it."

Since then, HORSES, run entirely on donations, has had the support and dedication of countless volunteers who help with everything from teaching riding skills to sending out newsletters. Many disabled riders also contribute their skills to the program.

Skills learned in the arena are put to work on the trail as riders guide their horses over rocky areas, up and down hills and through mountain streams. Fun and companionship are central to the program. The trips -- to a ranch in the Oregon desert in May, to a mountain wilderness in August and to the Oregon coast at the end of summer -- are the heart of the HORSES experience. Families and friends are welcome in all aspects of the program. They participate in lessons, and they go on the trips. Husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers can share in the wonder of the outdoors. "For years, I sat and watched as the kids did things," says Pat, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since an auto accident thirty years ago. "Then I took my 23-year-old daughter riding with me on Baker's Beach. It was the first time we'd been able to do something physical together."

All riders tell stories about things that didn't go the way they expected. The first camping trip was not as idyllic as Kerrie and Sue had planned. The first night it was freezing cold. Then all the horses ran away and had to be caught. And it rained so hard all the tents flooded. Yet for the five riders who went on the trip, it was the best adventure of their lives.

Both the unpredictable nature of the outings and the element of risk inspire these riders. On Pat's trip to the Oregon coast, her horse decided to lie down and roll part way over in the sand near the surf's edge. What Pat remembers best is not being scared but having the chance to look the ocean right in the eye. Because she couldn't get her wheelchair through the sand, she had not been down to the water for thirty years. "I was suddenly level with the waves; I was amazed at how big they were," she says.

But these experiences are not limited to the sighted. At 80, Gladys had been blind for ten years. Throughout her life, she had been an avid horsewoman, riding frequently on the many trails in the Three Sisters Wilderness. After she lost her sight, her family forbade her riding. HORSES gave her the chance to get back in the saddle.

On her first trip, the group had been riding for hours when the leader needed to stop and help a rider at the back of the group. He asked Gladys to lead everyone back to camp. "Jeff," Gladys said, "you know I can't see."

"That's OK," he replied. "The horse can see, can't he?" Gladys moved to the front of the group and headed for camp. When they arrived, she turned to Jeff with tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you."

Two years later, when Gladys broke her hip, doctors told her she'd never walk again. "You get this fixed," she told them. "I've got a pack trip to go on next summer!"

The camaraderie of able and disabled people, the relationships with the horses and the sheer adventure and beauty of it all are a catalyst for self-confidence. "One way we know we really are alive is by the risks we take," Sue says. "When you go back to your wheelchair, when you go back to doctors, parents, husbands, wives or whoever is saying 'you can't do that,' you can just smile and say, 'Hey, I already did.'"