The day was beautiful Sept. 12 when people gathered at the new trailhead and arboretum at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center.

Reviewing the origins of the arboretum, Dan Kunkle, Nature Center director, said Doug Gause bought the land and did not want to keep it. Gause did want it to become part of the Nature Center and offered to sell it at a good price.

The bare piece of land featured boulders lined in a row, but the potential of a trailhead on the property was seen. Ron Kline, a board member at the Nature Center, suggested it was the perfect place for an arboretum.

An arboretum is a collection of woody plants, usually trees, many of them exotic. What the Lehigh Gap Nature Center wanted was an arboretum featuring native trees and shrubs to provide wildlife with food.

The Center partnered with Edge of the Woods Native Plant Nursery to choose 230 plants. Louise Schaffer and Sue Tantsit, nursery owners, designed and helped plant the area. Only four plants died. Brian Birchak now is the chief caretaker with volunteer help.

Support letters were needed to help obtain grants and were supplied by East Penn Township Supervisors, Lehigh County Commissioners and Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-122nd.

Heffley was represented Sept. 12 by Timm Berger. He commended organizers for bringing nature back to the mountain with help from a Community Conservation Partnership grant.

"Partners are really important," Kunkle said.

The Nature Center worked with the Delaware and Lehigh Trail.

D&L Trail President Elissa Garafalo stressed the need for partners such as the Nature Center and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in the arboretum project.

Funding came from a variety of sources, Kunkle said, including DCNR's Bureau of Recreation; McLean Contributionship of Philadelphia, Pocono Forest and Waters Conservation Landscape program, an anonymous donor and members and friends who shared the vision.

Janet Sweeney from Pocono Forest and Waters said her organization donated 43 mini grants totaling $246,000. The Wildlife Information Center, still the formal name for the nature center, received one of the 12 grants in the last round.

Kunkle said the moonscape the Wildlife Information Center bought is the only Superfund Site to become an environmental center. The conversion of the waste site needed someone naïve enough to believe it could be done and he was that person, Kunkle said.

Ellen Ferretti, secretary of DCNR, said she loves the native trees and the mountain. Ferretti recalled the denuded mountain and is glad to see the transformation. The restored land is an asset with its wildlife and river.

"This trailhead extends that reach. It is important to DCNR's work to create a conservation landscape with strong partnerships," Ferretti said.

The new site connects people with nature, leads to an awareness of native plants, and builds strong partnerships.

Anita Collins, LGNC board president, said one of her contributions to the project was llama poop used along the trail to fertilze plants. All of a sudden this place was transformed, she said.