“There’s a stream of our footprints all along the Appalachian Mountains,” Russell said. They walked alongside the alligators and cypress trees decorating the 1,400-mile Florida Trail until their feet hit pavement on U.S. They hiked 72 miles on the Benton MacKaye Trail and the 335-mile Pinhoti Trail and the 175-mile Alabama Road Walk. They traversed some of the east coast’s highest peaks and most beautiful overlooks between Maine and Georgia on the 2,194-mile Appalachian Trail, which Eigenbrot completed northbound, and Russell completed southbound. Over the last year, Eigenbrot and Russell hiked 400 miles of ATV roads, overgrown trails and oceanside in Canada, where they hardly saw other hikers but walked alongside swimming whales, lounging seals and a plethora of moose and beavers. Eigenbrot and Russell, who have also hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, are among only hundreds who have completed the ECT since John Brinda first hiked the route in 1997. Now, as we talked near the Sandal Factory, 32-year-old Owen “At Home” Eigenbrot and 33-year-old Ally “Spice” Russell, stood 83.4 miles away from completing a through-hike of the Eastern Continental Trail (ECT), a backpacking trip of more than 4,400 miles, from Quebec, Canada to Key West. Since that day in August, she had been hiking south toward Key West. Standing in front of me was the same cheerful face from the mountainside in New Hampshire. It took a few moments to place the familiarity of her face, but suddenly we were hugging like old friends. The door to the store opened, and the woman came outside and grabbed one of the oranges.
I can never say no to fresh fruit,” the man responded. I looked down and saw the head of an elderly dog poke through the top of the covered stroller. His reddish beard was even longer than I’d thought, and so was his hair, tied up beneath an orange baseball cap. When we parted ways, I felt an invigoration and drive that I could finish this long journey. I was thrilled to know another woman around my age had successfully conquered those 300 miles still ahead of me. She commented how strikingly comforting it was to see another young woman having a normal conversation with her mom at the base of a terrifying climb. When she made it to where I sat after a few minutes of treacherous descent, I saw that she was young, bright and cheerful, despite the rocks. 5, 2022, her birthday, a celebration I was missing since I was 1,872 miles into a 2,194-mile hike of the Appalachian Trail.Īs we talked, I heard a woman climbing down the nearly vertical rock face just above me. I took my backpack off to rest on the steep, rock-strewn incline toward Wildcat D Peak in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to talk with my mom on the phone. It's pretty much always '5 o'clock on island time, and the bartender might just make you a cocktail worth bragging about back on the mainland.Eigenbrot and Russell arrive at the Southernmost Point buoy in Key West on March 18, marking the end of their Eastern Continental Trail through-hike. So a fter you’ve had all you can take of Key West's beaches and to-do list head over to one of the bars on our list. While Old Town and Duval Street have some decent spots for people driving in from the mainland and being shuttled in from cruise ships, savvy cocktail connoisseurs know that even better drinks await on the side streets and inside some of the best restaurants where there’s plenty of rum, tequila, wine and craft beer to go around. True, it's taken a while for the tropical destination to get with the program, but now there are some incredible bars in Key West worth a walk or a ride on the trolley. Key West offers its fair share of premixed cocktails like the classic rum runner and sweet frozen drinks that keep college kids on spring break coming back for more, but there's so much more to the island's cocktail game.
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