Local residents flocked to the Milford Upper Charles Trail on Saturday morning, as they do nearly every weekend. This time, however, many left their bikes, rollerblades and jogging shoes at home.

On the blustery morning, the tools of choice were work gloves, trash bags, blowers and rakes, as more than two dozen people turned out to help the Friends of the Milford Upper Charles Trail complete its annual fall cleanup.

"We do a cleanup twice a year, once around Earth Day and once in the fall to get it ready for winter," said Pat Rosenthal, a past president of the Friends group, a nonprofit organization that supports the Parks Department. The Friends' goals include maintaining and enhancing the recreational jewel and raising awareness of it among local residents. "We get a lot of help from a lot of different sources."

Volunteers included groups from Bank of America and the Montgomery Masonic Lodge.

Corinne Sanborn and her mother, Amie, also bundled up to help pick up litter along the trail. Corinne planned to use the cleanup as part of her community service responsibilities at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical School.

"People still don't pick up after themselves or their dogs the way they should," Amie Sanborn said.

The cleanup focused on the original, 2.8-mile section of paved trail, which runs from Fino Field and the Milford Senior Center and past the shores of Louisa Lake.

That stretch opened in 2007 and quickly became a local hotspot. It is scheduled to be joined next fall by another three miles of trail that run to the Hopkinton and Holliston town lines. The third and final phase, which will fill in a missing downtown stretch, is in the design phase, with officials hopeful that a private developer will step forward to complete at least part of that work.

According to Rosenthal, the most recent trail count, completed in May 2010, found more than 1,000 people using the trail. "It is very heavily used all times of year, even in winter," she said.

Working around T-shirt clad groups taking part in the annual CROP Walk fundraiser, teams scoured weeds and woods along the trail for trash and swept the pavement clean of leaves and other debris.

"It's an amazing asset to have in town and we feel fortunate to have it here," said Nancy Wojick, secretary of the Friends, as she paused her sweeping work to let some walkers pass. "It's meant to be a transportation corridor eventually. I get calls from people now and then who want to know when the entire loop will be done so they can use it to bike to work."

The grand plan is for a 27-mile loop through Milford, Hopkinton, Holliston, Ashland and Sherborn, following mainly abandoned rail beds. Milford is ahead of the other four communities on the loop, thanks largely to its decision to forge ahead and grab state transportation funds while they were still available, Wojick noted.

With the trail ready for winter, the Friends continue to prepare for the grand opening in the fall of 2011 of the under-construction phase 2, which will double the length of the path to nearly six miles. The group is also seeking corporate sponsors for its soon-to-be-updated Web site and seeks new members, Rosenthal added.

"We've got lots of ideas and a lot of energy," she said. "But the job we have keeps getting bigger, so we can always use more help."