Company Creek — Friday, Jul. 5, 2013

Central Cascades > Entiat Mountains/Lake Chelan

We flew into the Stehekin Airport and hiked up the Company Creek Trail and camped for two nights in the vicinity of Hilgard Pass. The initial section of the trail within the National Recreation Area is very well maintained and in extremely good condition. The remainder of the trail in the National Forest has decent tread but needs extensive maintenance in the form of brush removal, blowdown removal, and bridge construction. Some low sections (roughly between 3 and 5 miles from the trailhead) within the National Forest are SEVERELY overgrown with brush and nettles, to the point that the trail tread is at times completely invisible underfoot. A long-sleeved shirt is recommended to avoid nettle stings. An average hiker would have extreme difficulty following the trail in some areas; these sections require extensive prior bushwhacking experience. The trail could be lost entirely within 1-2 years if no maintenance action is taken. A difficult, high-stakes log crossing is required at 5 miles due to the absence of a bridge. Due to fast-water and additional trees across the stream immediately downstream of the crossing point, falling off this log could potentially be fatal. I would not recommend proceeding beyond this point if you are uncomfortable crossing dangerous streams on logs. There is a campsite within a short distance prior to this crossing point. Further upstream, the trail crosses the creek twice within a very short distance. Due to high water, we traveled cross-country on the same side of the creek to rejoin the trail. There are numerous meadows and excellent potential campsites throughout this route. This route has unlimited hammock-camping potential, even at higher elevations. This trail is as uncrowded as they get: so far as we could tell, we were the first hikers of the season to use this trail. We encountered no other hikers, and the only tracks we encountered (other than our own) were animal tracks. This trail is used extensively by local deer and black bears. We saw numerous piles of fresh black bear scat and one very large pile of what appeared to be grizzly scat, though I've never actually seen a grizzly south of the Canadian border. Any groups using this trail should be prepared for bear encounters.