By Eliza Ridgeway

Photo courtesy of Maria Pasiuk Brice, right, remained calm and helped his owner after yellow jackets attacked him and his barn-mate Wesley, left, who suffered more than 20 stings. The two horses board at Westwind Barn in Los Altos Hills.

Los Altos Hills’ natural pleasures can double as perils for hikers, bikers and riders on area trails. Two riders from Westwind Barn weathered a real-life adventure earlier this month when a yellow-jacket swarm took trail riding to an unexpected extreme.

“It’s definitely something out of a horror movie,” said Maria Pasiuk, who nursed more than 20 stings from the attack. Pasiuk and Lee Ann Meyers, both of whom board their horses at Westwind, were riding a trail above Hidden Villa when they encountered yellow jackets, likely disturbed from a nearby nest.

“My horse went bonkers,” Pasiuk said. “With any bug they do kind of panic, and to have hundreds of them all over you …”

Pasiuk’s horse, Wesley, knocked her off the trail and down the hillside three times as they were both covered in wasps. Meyers, farther along on the trail, managed to hold her own horse, Brice, and catch a panicked Wesley as he tried to bolt down the trail.

The ride degraded into a sprint down the trail, with Meyers leading both horses while Pasiuk stripped off her wasp-covered shirt.

“You stop and look behind you and you can see them,” Pasiuk said of the wasps. “Thank God we were on the downhill.”

Pasiuk called Meyers her “warrior-goddess” for the rescue.

After some Benadryl, Pasiuk said, her stings are now an itchy annoyance. “Thank God my parents gave me good genes,” she said.

The wasp encounter has deterred neither woman from continuing to ride in Los Altos Hills. A disturbed nest, while scary, is part of experiencing the area’s trails.

“As long as (Wesley) is OK, we’re fine,” Pasiuk said.