SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A husband-and-wife hiking team reached the Pacific Ocean after a 5,058 mile cross-country trek, becoming the first to backpack the entire official route of the transcontinental American Discovery Trail, according to the organization that helped establish the trail.

Joyce, 51, and Pete Cottrell, 55, of Whitefield, N.H. left their jobs and started the trek across 13 states on March 5, 2002. Eighteen months later, the tired, sunburned, but exhilarated couple dipped their toes in the Pacific Ocean at Point Reyes saying they’d do it all over again.

The Cottrells took leave of the Atlantic at Cape Henlopen, Del. and followed the American Discovery Trail, facing flash floods, forest fires, knee-deep snow and blinding desert sandstorms.

They nursed sunburns, sore muscles, ankle sprains, blisters, flu, and their two adult sons, who thought their parents had gone crazy.

But the Cottrells, who were newcomers to physical fitness, saw this as the “adventure of a lifetime,” and have no regrets.

On the East coast they frequently pitched their tents in backyards because of suburban sprawl. In the Midwest, the midsummer humidity wore them down, but it was the vast, dry stretches of the western states that proved to be the greatest challenge.

The American Discovery Trail Society, an organization that pushed for the establishment of the trail and now promotes it, provided support along the way, making water drops in Utah and Nevada which the Cottrells found using global positioning satellite signals.

After reaching Colorado in the winter they stopped for four months, taking job as Wal-Mart cashiers to raise the money needed to complete the trip.

They hiked between 12 and 20 miles a day, spending about one night a week in a hotel so they could enjoy a bed and a shower.

Through it all, they relied on the kindness of those they met. They particularly remember a retired worker in his late 70s who treated them to breakfast and his homespun philosophy in Herington, Kan., and a former Navy band trombonist who invited them to join his family for dinner in Annapolis, Md.

“What better way to see the country? You really get to know our country and people up close on a daily basis. You can’t get it in Winnebagos,” Joyce Cottrell told The Associated Press from Virginia City, Nev., during the trip.

Users can hike, bike or ride on horseback past 10,000 points of interest in 15 states on the trail.

Billed as the “Route 66 of American Recreation,” the trail starts in Delaware, passes through cities, mountains and deserts, meandering through 14 national parks and 16 national forests before hitting the Pacific at Point Reyes.

The trail officially opened in 2000 – 11 years after it was proposed by hiking enthusiasts as the first coast-to-coast footpath connecting the popular north-south Appalachian, Continental Divide and Pacific Crest trails.

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On the Net:

American Discovery Trail Society: http://www.discoverytrail.org

AP-ES-08-18-03 1953EDT

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