HACHITA, N.M. — After walking 7,636 miles, Jeff Garmire of Vancouver has joined the tiny and elite cadre who have hiked America’s three great long-distance routes — the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails — in a calendar year.
Garmire completed 80 days and 2,782 miles on the Continental Divide Trail on Saturday, reaching the remote southern terminus in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico.
“As the monument came into view that elated feeling of accomplishment came over me and I felt a shiver,’’ he wrote on his blog. “I walked up and touched the monument and it was finally over. After walking 252 days in every weather system you can imagine and countless roadblocks, I had somehow finished something that, up until now, I would never have believed….I am just a normal person who chose to get up and chip away at something big.’’
His first post-completion task was a bus ride to the El Paso airport and a flight home.
