Trans-America Trail

[Guest]

I came across a video from a friends post about a Jay Leno intro to a trail done by a set of Land Rovers going cross country. The Trail starts in Southeastern Tennessee, and ends at the Pacific Ocean in southwestern Oregon – nearly 5,000 miles of mostly off-pavement riding. The website is listed below and I thought this might be something fun to do. Obviously not the whole thing in one shot but breaking it into sections. It would be a cool way to see the country with the kids and spend some time camping, enjoying nature. Anyone interested in doing something like this?

http://www.transamtrail.com/

[JeepN4kc]

This does look like quite the adventure. Definitely need your rig to be set-up expedition style. I notice the trail is one-way, east to west travel. But, I couldn't figure out if you can enter it anywhere along the route. Guess you'd have to study the maps and go from there.

[lagnaf]

just take off work for a week and do the trail "Cannon Ball Run" style!!

does look interesting tho!

[Guest]

There is no way I could do the whole trail in one vacation either. What I was thinking was to drive highways out to Tennessee/North Carolina for the start of the trail which is about a 18 - 24hr drive. I have family/friends in that area so we would have places to crash before starting off. Then do the route all the way up to the Arkansas/Oklahoma border which could be done easily in under a 5 day trip. That would be the first half done and then could determine if/when to make the second half of the leg...

[Guest]

The maps they have available say Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas is 1139 miles, Oklahoma-New Mexico-Colorado is 1329 miles, and Utah-Nevada-Oregon is 1715 miles so if you broke it into 3 parts like that it could be easily a week trip each summer over 3 years. Not bad if you ask me...!

[Guest]

I have always wanted to do this trip. That was my pla as well was to break it into 3 different segments.

[FreemansXJ]

That would be a blast!! I am with everyone else though, no way I could do it all at once until I retire...then I could do it twice :)

John

[JeepN4kc]

That would be a blast!! I am with everyone else though, no way I could do it all at once until I retire...then I could do it twice :)

John

John -

22 years leo IIRC right?

Should be getting close to retirement...............

[FreemansXJ]

John -

22 years leo IIRC right?

Should be getting close to retirement...............

6 more :)

John

[Guest]

I might be interested in something like this, if we can put it together.

[Guest]

Hmm, The Arkansas leg might make a nice "long" weekend trip, Might even run thru the Mark Twain National Forest on the way down...

I like the idea! Thanks duttonja!

[Guest]

I am planning ordering the maps/charts this weekend so hopefully I will have them in the next week or two... let me know if you are interested in sitting down to start making plans and we can schedule something/somewhere

[Guest]

Keep us posted, Hopefully this weather will turn warm enough for some camping this year...

[jmwilson]

just curious if anything came about on this trip. I think something like this would be a blast.

[Guest]

So my buddy and I did the Arkansas leg of the TaT 2 years ago. We did it old school, just one Jeep (I know better...) and primitive camping the whole time. We broke it into a 4 day weekend. We bought the maps, had it taped to my basement wall and mapped it all out, gas spots, food, waterfalls, camping etc. We chose to start 1/3 way in from the East due to how lame the first 1/3 looked, gravel service roads is what it looked like. Wow, what a trip! It's not your typical "wheeling" trip though. Nothing extreme by our standards but gosh it was amazing. The views alone are worth doing it. A whole lot of fire roads through the mountains. We did about 300 miles and probably 40 miles were pavement. Seriously it was a blast. We have since talked about how we didn't even really appreciate what we saw and did until we got back a few days later. I have a ton of pictures if anyone is interested. Amazing trip. I did plenty of research about the TaT. You can do the entire trail in a Jeep with the exception (this is what I have read) of a couple turns in Utah I believe. We went in the spring and probably saw 35-50 bikes along the way. They do it fast, we did it for the views and being outdoors. Awesome trip, hit me up if you have any questions about that leg of it!