Eagle Cap Wilderness Pack Station is not safe, competent, or honest. In August of 2016 we hired ECWPS to take our two family's gear to Ice Lake, the location seen in the backdrop of their website homepage. On our way hiking up the lake, we passed our packer coming down the trail with our gear. He said the trail was blocked by a pair of fallen trees. Obviously ECWPS had made no prior inquiry as to whether this well-traveled trail was open to pack animals, as the trees had fallen the previous winter. The packer said he would access the lake from the backside. I queried him about this as I wasn't aware of another trail to the lake. But he showed no hesitation in his ability to get our gear to the lake, so we continued hiking. It turns out that he had never been to the lake and was just assuming it was accessible from the south. Eventually we reached the lake, with some in our party being exhausted. Hours passed. We had almost no gear or food. ECWPS gave us no instructions as to how to proceed if they failed to deliver our gear. We were in a difficult and dangerous position as some in our party were not prepared for 8 more miles of hiking back to the trailhead. Also, we hesitated to start down for fear of our gear arriving from behind. Others at the lake offered to help us bivouac. After much discussion we decided that we should start down. Just after sunset we found our gear piled beside the trail just below the fallen trees. Evidently the packer, realizing he could not get to the lake from behind, came back up the trail and dumped our gear. It was difficult to find a spot to set up camp as night fell, but we found a somewhat flat area in the woods and set up camp by headlamp as it started raining. Our trip was ruined, but at least we were now out of danger.
ECWPS didn't send up a scout the next day to find out if we found our gear or what happened to us. They never contacted us by phone to follow-up. They simply took our money and walked away. When we contacted them later that week they offered to refund half of our money. Although our trip was worse than ruined, I felt a partial refund was the best I could negotiate. However, ECWPS never made payment. After a month I re-contacted ECWPS. They said that they didn't have our address, which was not true. After giving our address again by text and email, six more weeks have passed with no response. It seems clear their word is of no value. Did ECWPS deliver our gear to the lake? No. Did they keep every penny of our money? Yes. A 'one star' rating is too generous. read more