MISSOULA — On Missoula's many trails, wooden boards mark routes you can take.
Recently, some of these directional markers have been repurposed through Missoula Parks and Recreation's Zero Wood Waste effort.
"We're sometimes able to salvage large portions of those trees and particularly Norway Maple, they make it's amazing hardwood," Conservation lands program manager Jeff Gicklhorn said.\
Watch to learn more about the new signs on Mount Jumbo:
The City of Missoula manages 42,000 trees. However, some have to come down from time to time.
Over the last few years, the City of Missoula created a process to reduce waste by turning trees into trail markers.
"Mill them into boards, process them into really nicely smooth boards, route our directions on there, paint and stain them, and then we put them out onto our properties," Gicklhorn explained.
While they replaced older signs on the North Hills last year, 2025's effort renewed every sign on Mount Jumbo.
"About 65 in total all the way from down here at Cherry Street all the way up to the north zone and over into Marshall Canyon," Gicklhorn said.
Parks and Rec. aren't just making directional signs.
"We mill these rough-cut six by six, two by six, all these big beams that we need to build these kiosks, and that actually saves the city a considerable amount of money," Gicklhorn detailed.
Zero waste doesn't mean zero expense for the city; however, making these products with repurposed wood costs considerably less.
"The cost to take a salvage log, mill it into the lumber that we need is a lot less than buying that lumber brand new, and it prevents those logs from, let's say, going to the compost facility, and just getting ground up into the mulch," Gicklhorn said.
With last summer's windstorm destroying thousands of trees, some were too mangled to turn into signs.
“We really were not able to save any of those trees. Actually, many of the trees were removed by a contractor, then they were ground, and then trucked out of the city," Gicklhorn said.
Next year's trail sign rejuvenation project will be on Mount Sentinel.
"Then after that Dean Stone," Gicklhorn added.
While the City isn’t accepting logs for upcoming projects, if an intact part of a tree has come down, Gicklhorn notes could be saved and used again.
"Garden City Compost does divert high-quality logs. They actually take them out of the pile for us and stage them. Then, we're able to go through those and assess whether or not that's something that we want to save," Gicklhorn said.
