Act now to protect the trails you love — every dollar you give is tripled!

Dear Trail Enthusiast,

If you love the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hells Canyon Recreation Area and are concerned about public access, we have a great opportunity for you.

We are the Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Association (WMHCTA), a dedicated group of hikers, packers, and trail stewards who work closely with the US Forest Service to maintain our local trails.

Our Impact in 2025

WMHCTA had a successful field season clearing trails. We set a goal of clearing 1,000 trees from 130 miles of trail in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. We well exceeded that goal!

2000 trees cleared from 305 miles of trail
134 trail signs installed, brushed
173 miles of trail brushed
650 yards of tread improved

Still, nearly 20% (380 miles) of the trails in the Hells Canyon NRA and the Eagle Cap Wilderness have not been maintained for many years and are in danger of being lost if we don’t clear them in the near future.

Why We Need Your Help

The value of our 2025 volunteer work is estimated to be $270,638. Our 163 members and 614 subscribers to our newsletter sustain an annual budget between $70,000 and $84,000.

While the US Forest Service provided $46,000 of our budget this year, we rely on membership dues, donations and grants from various foundations to make up the difference. Continuation of US Forest Service funding is uncertain. Hence the reason for our request for your help.

To protect our trails and our future operations, we are establishing a permanent Legacy Trails Fund. This endowment will provide annual funding to support part of our budget.

A Giving Opportunity

An extremely generous philanthropist has committed to match all donations 3:1, up to an aggregate maximum match of $400,000 during our Endowment Fund Drive.

Your $1,000 donation becomes $4,000
Your $50 donation becomes $200

This matching offer is only available to us from now until January 31, 2026.

Additional Benefits

We are a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization –donations are tax deductible.
If you have an IRA and must take a required minimum distribution (RMD), consider making a qualified charitable distribution to our Association. This reduces your taxable RMD.
You can double your impact by contributing to both the 2025 and 2026 tax years.
All contributions will be confidential unless you choose differently.
The endowment fund will have minimal overhead costs and only the income, not principal, will be used for our annual operations budget.

Ways to Give

Mail us a check along with a copy of our Endowment Donation Form
Bring cash to our office at 401 NE First Street in Enterprise, Oregon (please call ahead to be sure that we will be here).
For information about donating securities, click HERE

For the past nine years, our volunteers have dedicated tens of thousands of volunteer hours of trail work in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hells Canyon NRA keeping these trails accessible to the public.

Thank you for helping us to continue maintaining and improving our NE Oregon trails!

Happy Trails to You,

Brent Lewis, Treasurer Mike Hansen, Executive Director

LEGACY TRAILS FUND BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Access to wilderness has always had its challenges. We have been fortunate over the years to have a trail system allowing us access to nature’s splendor in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

As time passes, the aging of forest growth and weather events continue to compromise our trail system by downfall, brush growth, erosion, rock slides, and more. Maintaining access for the hiker, runner, and livestock user takes substantial effort to keep up with these natural events.

Decades ago, in the 1960s and 1970s, the USFS employed large seasonal trail crews with livestock support. The effective trail maintenance approach provided ten-days out in the field, then 4-days off. However, over time, budget priorities and lack of money has seen this approach dwindle to little effort. For instance, last season (2025) one seasonal employee was hired for both the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, combined. That means one person for about 115-days, of which probably 15 days are administrative, leaving about 100 days in the field. It takes two people to operate a cross-cut saw. Accordingly, trail maintenance has suffered, and many trails have fallen into disrepair. We are now facing trails overgrown with brush and clogged with fallen trees.

The United States Forest Service (USFS) provides detailed maps of the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. These maps show trail heads and trails, among many other informational items. When a person identifies a trail route for their adventure, they assume the trails are maintained. The USFS experiences public “push back” when access is poor because of a lack of maintenance in many areas. Accordingly, certain trails are “dropped”, meaning they are taken out of the trail system and removed from future maps.

In 2017 several visionaries from Wallowa County formed a charitable not-for-profit organization named “Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Association” (Association). The idea was to provide the USFS with volunteers trained in leadership with skill sets in first aid, cross-cut saw certification, and even chainsaw certification (for trails outside wilderness boundaries). Funding by the USFS in a cost-effective manner was available on a year-by-year basis to maintain what was called “deferred maintenance trails”. This new management approach has been the best thing going for the USFS and the general public in keeping our trail system accessible. Association volunteers participated in over 45-separate trips during the 2025 season.

As of today, our Association has an expense budget of approximately $80,000 per year. Expenses involve a part-time executive director, a part-time out-reach coordinator, rent, tools, travel per diem, training costs, etc. A fixed/variable cost analysis shows fixed costs at approximately $25,000 per year. These are costs incurred to keep our organization functional whether we perform any work in the field or not. The balance of the budget consists of variable costs driven by trail maintenance effort in the field. Each year’s funding is tenuous since the $80,000 per year is funded in part by USFS agreements complimented by smaller one-time grants from various other sources.

Our Board of Directors are trying to achieve Association financial stability. As a start, we need an endowment to at least cover the fixed costs. We have been fortunate to find a philanthropist who is providing a 3-to-1 match, the aggregate match not to exceed $400,000. So, if we raise $133,333, we earn the entire $400,000. This would give us a $533,333 permanent investment which would provide interest/dividend income to cover our fixed costs!

We believe we have a path to finance the $55,000 variable costs for 2026. The annual concern of financing the other $55,000 in years past 2026 is another matter.

I am sending you our fundraising appeal, and encourage you to join us in making our Legacy Trails Fund a reality. Your generosity is needed before February 1, 2026, the date the 3-to-1 match ends. This is a generous opportunity we must grasp to start bringing financial stability to our Association.

WMHCTA Trails Legacy Fund

Keeping Trails open in the Wallowas and Hells Canyon for years to come