Dedication
The Community Creek Trail is dedicated to "Heroes of the Maya Forest." A trail guide entitled El Pilar Community Creek Trail -- Life Returns to the Forest is a booklet that tells the stories of some of these heroes. There are several excerpts from this trail guide in the following section. A special thanks to Friends for Conservation and Development for producing the trail guide.

Community Creek Trail Guide

The Community Creek Trail starts from the southeast corner of the main parking area. The path is strenuous and involves some steep slopes. All areas are improved with steps and rest spots. We suggest that you take plenty of water and pace yourself accordingly. An old logging road drops down the escarpment from El Pilar into a small arroyo, then follows the stream towards its source in the south beyond. The trail returns via the caretaker's house on El Pilar Road.
Start of the Community Creek Trail
The area surrounding the trailhead is called "Pilar Camp" on many local maps. It was once a lumbering camp for the local mahogany "works" and portable sawmill that operated during the 1950s and 1960s. Access to clear water in this creek is what has always made this an attractive place.

"...Pilar Camp, was a bustling logging camp, which brought in loggers from the local communities as early as the 1930's. This camp was comprised of small shelters in the forest where the loggers would spend months at a time hunting and logging the timber. In those days mahogany, cedar and other hardwoods were taken from the interior of the forest by using oxen. ...From this camp the wood hunters constructed a wide network of picados or paths, which they used to move around, like ants, into the midst of the jungle in search of the hardwoods. But today, these paths are unrecognizable after 70 years of natural forest growth - evidence that nature can recover when left undisturbed." -- EP Community Creek Trail Guide