A new group of volunteers is needed to maintain the Appalachian Trail along the northern borders of Lehigh and Northampton counties, a section of the 2,160-mile path that is being eyed for major changes in coming years.

Rounding up local residents to help out is critical for the Keystone Trails Association as it considers committing as maintainer of the 10-mile section. To gauge interest, the Harrisburg-based nonprofit is holding two recruiting hikes in January.

Bookending Lehigh Gap, just south of Palmerton, Carbon County, this stretch of the trail is planned to be largely re-routed due to erosion, beginning as early as 2017, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

"We'd like to take over responsibility for it, but we need to recruit some local people in kind of the greater Palmerton area to help us with that," Keystone Trails Association member Jim Foster said.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has the design done for the new route and hopes to tackle preliminary compliance work in 2016, said Karen Lutz, the conservancy's Mid-Atlantic Region director.

"We will be reconstructing most of the trail through Little Gap and Lehigh Furnace Gap," Lutz said. "That'll be a major initiative, multi-year project."

Lutz said funding for the re-routing is coming largely from the parties held responsible for pollution from nearly a century of zinc smelting in Palmerton, which led to parts of the mountain and the borough being designated a Superfund site.

From Georgia to Maine, there are 31 groups that maintain the Appalachian Trail, according to Lutz. The 10 miles from Lehigh Furnace Gap east through Lehigh Gap to Little Gap, near Blue Mountain Ski Area, had been maintained for more than 50 years by the Philadelphia Trail Club.

"It's kind of amazing that they did (it) as long as they did it," said Dan Kunkle, executive director of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. The center off Route 873 in Washington Township, Lehigh County, is the meeting point for both of the Keystone Trails Association's recruitment hikes this month.

The Philadelphia club's distance from Lehigh Gap, paired with a drop in membership and aging of members, forced the group to give up maintenance of that trail section, President Deborah Lamb said.

"It was a yearlong process process in determining whether we could continue it," she said, "and it was not done without sadness and regret."

The club's volunteers would paint the Appalachian Trail's trademark white blazes, and blue blazes for scenic diversions; maintain the rock and wood diagonal strips that help divert stormwater; break up fire pits; cut back brush and invasive plants; repair signage and tackle other tasks.

The Keystone Trails Association would be looking to continue that work, focusing on the trail as it exists now until the Appalachian Trail Conservancy completes the rerouting.

"It's not a concern," the association's Foster said of the rerouting, "but it's an issue that we're dealing with."

The association has a hand in maintaining trails across Pennsylvania, and has in-house experts that would get involved in heavy work and training new volunteers.

"We need reasonably able-bodied people," Foster said. "We'll teach you all the skills that you need and what is involved with" trail maintenance.

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The Keystone Trails Association is holding hikes to recruit volunteers as it considers committing to maintaining 10 miles of the Appalachian Trail in the Lehigh Gap area, south of Palmerton, Pennsylvania, and along the northern borders of Lehigh and Northampton counties.

Each 5 miles long, the hikes are scheduled to leave from the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, 8844 Paint Mill Road outside Slatington, as follows:

10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, going north to Little Gap.

10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, going south to Lehigh Furnace Gap.

The association says cars will be spotted at the end, prior to starting, to get participants back to the start.

Registration is not required, nor is membership in the association to volunteer, but the group asks anyone interested to sign up on its meetup.com page.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.