City marks trails on new maps

Missoula Parks and Recreation is working to create a map of hiking and biking trails across the valley that could be available as early as next spring. Last week, the Missoula City Council approved $11,900 to pay for the design.

The proposed map will include all trails in the city of Missoula, as well as those at Pattee Canyon, the Rattlesnake and atop Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo, said Morgan Valliant, conservation lands manager for Missoula Parks and Recreation. The map would also provide details about available facilities at all city parks and open spaces.

“It’s going to be a fairly comprehensive map,” he said. “I think it’ll be one that’ll be used a ton.”

The map will feature almost 75 miles of trail across the valley, 60 of which are on conservation lands. At the moment, 20 to 25 miles of trail are featured on maps available to the community, Valliant said. He said the closest thing available to a map that covers this area is one offered by the Missoula Bicycle and Pedestrian Board, but that doesn’t include hiking trails, such as the ones that crisscross the two mountains on either side of Hellgate Canyon.

Many have said these maps have been a long time coming, but in the past funding hasn’t been available for the project. Now, with money from the city government and the help of a variety of groups — including the Missoula Natural History Center, the Biomimicry Center and Run Wild Missoula — the maps will become a reality.

Valliant said the maps will be a huge help for people who are new to the valley, especially those trying to navigate trails with outdated maps. At locations like Jumbo, he said, the current maps show only 30 percent of the actual trails on the mountain in some places. The same holds true for other places in and around Missoula.

Part of the grant for the maps will also pay for mile markers that have been placed along the Kim Williams Trail, as well as interpretive signage and updated maps at each trailhead that will soon be constructed.

Eventually, Valliant said, maps will be available online, where people could use them to plan a day of hiking or biking. Yet, until the city gets funding, only a printed version will be available.

The city is gathering existing maps to send to Computer Terrain Mapping Inc. of Boulder, Colo., which will work on designing the new map over the winter.

The plan received unanimous support from the council, including Councilman Dave Strohmaier.

“It’s a good idea,” Strohmaier said, “because we don’t have any good trail maps and this will maximize public use.”

Valliant said the maps will also help preserve the land. With no official maps available and trailheads that are seldom updated, some people don’t know the exact location of a trail and wander off the path. With a better idea of where trails are located, Valliant hopes people will stay on trails and do less damage to the environment around them.

“It’s hard to tell people to stay on trail when there is no map saying where the trails are,” he said. “I’m pretty excited. It’s something Missoula has needed for a long time.”