Husband and wife are first to backpack all 5,000

SAN FRANCISCO -- Relying on the kindness of strangers and enduring severe weather, a husband-and-wife hiking team reached the Pacific Ocean after a 5,058 mile cross-country trek, becoming the first to walk the full American Discovery Trail.

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

Dick Bratton, spokesman for the American Discovery Trail Society, the organization that helped establish the trail, confirmed that the Cottrells were the first to backpack the trail's entire official route.

"We feel like a gift has been given to us, and we just can't say thank you enough," said Joyce Cottrell, 51, after she and her husband were welcomed on the beach by about 20 friends, hikers and other people he and his wife met along the way.

"This trail is just unbelievable. The places it goes through, and the people," said Peter Cottrell, 55. "The people are the best part."

The Cottrells left the Atlantic coast 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 and flu.

On the Eastern coast they frequently pitched their tents in back yards 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 provided support along the way, making water drops in Utah and Nevada which the Cottrells found using global positioning satellite signals.

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