The Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Association is a membership nonprofit of hikers, packers and outdoor people who clear downed trees, trim brush, rebuild tread, build and repair bridges and install signs on Forest Service trails, mainly in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. It grew out of a Forest Service-sponsored meeting on April 26, 2016 and launched on February 13, 2017. It is part of the Eagle Cap Partnership with Eastern Oregon University, the Forest Service and Wallowa Resources; it trains volunteers in chainsaw and crosscut work, posts trail ambassadors at five trailheads in Wallowa, Union and Baker counties, and works with Joseph High School’s fire and forestry program and Wallowa Resources’ HAWK internship. Hanley Jenkins II chairs its board and Mike Hansen is its executive director. Its office is at 401 NE 1st Street in Enterprise.
The scale of the job, in the association’s own figures: about 500 miles of trail in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and about 1,000 more in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. The last time the Forest Service maintained all of them to specification, in the 1980s, it took a paid crew of 18 about six months a year, roughly 20,000 hours. The agency now funds one or two seasonal trail crew members. In 2026 the association’s volunteers had put in nearly 5,500 hours by late October and completed about 270 miles; its paid crew worked another 2,500 hours, much of it replacing derelict bridges in the wilderness. Volunteers, paid crew and the Forest Service together finished a third to a half of the maintenance the trails need.
What the association says is at risk: continued access for hikers, riders, anglers, hunters and photographers, and the livelihoods of the guides and outfitters who depend on open trails. What it says is needed: the Forest Service recreation program funded again.
Reviewed by Mike Hansen, executive director, October 26, 2026. The organization has read this record and said so.
Also known as: WMHCTA
Through time
A Forest Service-sponsored meeting on April 26 starts weekly meetings toward a volunteer trails organization.
The association launches on February 13 as a membership nonprofit.
