Hikers want to be first (at least recorded) to trek 1,800-mile Great Eastern Trail from Ala. to N.Y.

Pine Mountain Trail (Bart Houck)

The practice of "through-hiking" the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail is well known, but no one has been  documented hiking the 1,800-mile Great Eastern Trail, a lesser known and somewhat incomplete route that runs roughly parallel to the AT. A pair of West Virginia hikers are trying to be the first recorded trip on the GET from Alabama to New York, Morgan Simmons of the Knoxville News Sentinel reported March 8.

Joanna Swanson and Bart Houck began their journey Jan. 10 at the GET's southern terminus on Flagg Mountain in Alabama, the southernmost Appalachian peak above 1,000 feet, writes Simmons.

"Right now, hiking the Great Eastern Trail is like hiking the Appalachian Trail 50 years ago," Swanson told Simmons. "The Great Eastern Trail isn't all connected, but it's hikeable, and that's what we're out to prove."

Last week the pair hiked Kentucky's Pine Mountain Trail, which spans 42 miles in Kentucky and connects Cumberland Gap National Historic Park with Breaks Interstate Park on the Virginia border, reports Mary Meadows of the Medical Leader newspaper of Pikeville, Ky., published by the local hospital. To follow Swanson and Houck's journey, visit their website. Here's a map of the trail and others in the Eastern U.S. (Click on image for larger version.)