FRANKLIN JOURNAL • March 21, 2024
Farmington native Briana DeSanctis began a two-year journey on New Year’s Day 2022, becoming the first woman to hike the American Discovery Trail — 6,800 miles from the Atlantic in Delaware to the Pacific Ocean in California — alone. “I finished the American Discovery Trail this morning,” DeSanctis wrote in an Instagram post Feb. 10 as she walked into the waters of Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore in northern California. For 770 days the lifelong outdoorswoman took 50 million steps and used 27 pairs of shoes to complete the coast-to-coast journey.