American long distance hiker Paul Duffy recently arrived in Newfoundland to begin his 14 month, 6,000 mile quest to hike the Eastern Continental Trail from Crow Head, Newfoundland to Key West, Florida. Drop by now and then to follow his progress. Good luck Paul!
Hello,
My name is Paul Duffey and I am currently hiking the Eastern Continental Trail. This trail or route stretches from the northern tip of Newfoundland Canada at Crow Head and goes south all the way to the southernmost point in the United States in Key West, Florida at the 90 miles to Cuba monument.. This incredible journey will take me 14 months to complete.
So why am I doing this? Well the outdoors have always been a big part of my life. I grew up fishing with my dad, got into the Boy Scouts at an early age and somehow always found myself in the outdoors. About 4 years ago I moved from Pennsylvania to Foxboro Massachusetts where I fell in love with the outdoors all over again.
I started to travel to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and instantly became addicted to that very special place. Hiking the trails and standing on top of a mountain became very special to me. I had always talked about hiking the AT since I was in the scouts, but after my first summit in the Whites, North Twin, I knew it was something I had to do.
My brother told me that he and his girlfriend were planning to move to the Key’s in May 2009, and I couldn’t have been happier for them. That’s where the joke came in that spawned this whole journey . . . I said to my brother “Well maybe I will just do the AT and then keep walking to meet up with you in the Key’s”. We all laughed but then I got to thinking, could you really walk from the end of the AT to the Key’s? So I started doing some research and that is how I found out about the Eastern Continental Trail. I was so excited and knew that this was what I was going to do!
After reading about Nimblewill Nomads trips on the ECT and hearing about what the trail was all about I knew that this was now my path to follow. The 14 + month trip seems “crazy” to most people I talk to but some, probably people like yourself, see this as a chance to celebrate someone living out their dream. When I complete the trail I will be the first person to have ever hiked the current trail southbound in one shot. With Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edwards Island now a part of the trail I will be hiking close to 6,000 miles.
Here is a link to the SPOT site which allows you to see where I am on Google Earth and where I have been. This page will be up the entire time I am gone and this will allow everyone to “see me” as I travel south to Key West. Feel free to share with whoever you want, thanks for checking in on me!
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0soNaJ8AWPdn14PC3IeqJgLYsSvNofzSN
