Carbon County residents rolled up their sleeves Saturday morning to gather trash, plant flowers and repair the stone borders at the Weissport Trailhead for one of seven Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor's trail cleanup days.

"I use the trail a lot so I just wanted to give back," said Sherry Ferguson.Ferguson planted pansies around the trailhead sign and helped pull trash from the trail during the morning.Weissport is the third area of the trail to be spruced up before heavy summer traffic begins.A request for volunteers was sent out in early April by Lauren Golden, trail and outreach coordinator for the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.The first cleanup scheduled on the trail began at the D&L Headquarters in Easton. The cleanup efforts will continue down the trail into the autumn season."Today, we are just focusing on Weissport. We are repairing the walls and grabbing the trash," said Golden.According to the coordinator, the stone walls and stairways needed to be re-stacked and mortared because of the heavy use from summer to winter."It's unique because in the winter the stairs freeze and people ice skate down them onto the canal. Since it's so shallow it freezes quickly," she said.Tires were pulled from the canal, along with a pop-up tent and food wrappers.Dean Hower and Bob Maholick gathered the stones from the canal to reconstruct and repair the border walls of the canal.Hower, a member of the D&L Trail board, said he tries to volunteer as often as possible while Maholick said he knew the work was needed from spending time at the trail."We come down and mow once a week," said Maholick, a member of Beltzville Lions Club.The next Saturday morning cleanup is scheduled from 8 to 11 a.m. July 16 at Jim Thorpe's Weigh Lock 2.The Saturday cleanups continue with Forks of the Delaware Trailhead in August, Walnutport and Slatington trailheads Sept. 17 with the last to be held at the Parryville trail section in October.Volunteers are encouraged to wear protective clothing and sun block during the cleanups.For more information visit delawareandlehigh.org.