If you were given the opportunity to walk across 2,560 miles of America on foot — through backcountry and desert, mountains and dense forest — would you want to do it?

For Aberystwyth locals Gwion ap Dafydd and Celyn Kenny the answer is ‘Yes. Walking the Pacific Trail was the chance of a lifetime’.

The couple, who “always wanted to do the trip”, saved their money, quit their jobs and embarked on an adventure that would take them all the way from Mexico up to Canada along the famed trail.

Covering an average of 27 miles each day, the couple walked the trail in just 141 days.

They regularly spent days on end without seeing any signs of civilisation — and when they did find it, they were “really small, proper American towns”.

“The local townspeople were similar to the Welsh,” Gwion said, adding they were “so friendly and welcoming”.

The couple were offered rides into the nearest town – often miles away – food and meals, or the rare chance to sleep in a real bed after days on end of sleeping in the wild.

The first 700 miles of the trail took them through the deserts of California – Death Valley is one of the hottest places on Earth and temperatures in winter alone exceed 30°C. The couple battled against the heat in the day and against the cold at night as they trekked through the Mojave Desert and some 400 miles of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

They carried everything they needed on their backs including shoes, tents, camping equipment – even ice axes to climb the 15,000 feet of Mount Whitney, almost four times the height of Snowdon.

And the pair also carried 20 litres of water on top of their packs.

Moving out of California into Oregon, the scenery shifted from desert mountains – the couple’s favourite landscape – to dense forest. But it also meant they could ditch the need to carry water, opting instead for a portable filter to drink from rivers and streams.

Luckily for the pair, the trail across Washington state was “amazing”, taking them up, down and across the snow-filled Cascade mountains.

When they finally completed the trail at the Canadian border after four and a half months — they actually finished it three weeks ahead of their original schedule — the pair say they had “mixed emotions”.

“It went by pretty quick” Gwion told Cambrian News, adding that by the time it was done his body was telling him it was ready to finish.­

But instead of spending just five nights sleeping in a bed throughout their trek, they opted to recover not in a hotel but in a tent.

“We’re so used to the camping life,” Gwion said.

The pair have travelled the world, spending two years in Canada, a year in New Zealand, and after completing the Pacific Crest Trail, they found their love of Wales has only grown.

“We appreciate Aberystwyth and Wales so much more now,” Gwion said. “It has so much more to offer than you first realise.”

He said he yearned to move away when he was younger, but he now views Aberystwyth as the place he would like to settle.

“We’re so lucky to live there, you’ve got the sea, the mountains, and it’s pretty rural. It’s big enough, and it’s small enough”.

The trip also showed the couple, who were already enthusiasts for the simple life of camping out in the wilds, just how little you need to live off.

“21st century western life is about having lots of things,” Gwion said, adding that the couple have little desire to adopt that once they return to “real life”.

“Things will be a lot simpler in our house,” he said.