Tag Archives: Sam Correro

How the West was Won: Finishing the TransAmerica Trail

We published Dave Scott’s story about riding the TransAmerica Trail from North Carolina to Colorado in our November 2022 Adventure Issue and on our website here, and it ended with an emergency evacuation at 13,000 feet in the San Juan Mountains. This is Part 2. –Ed.


TransAmerica Trail part 2
Before resuming the TAT, we did a shakedown run on Last Dollar Road near Telluride, Colorado.

Breaking my leg near 13,114-foot Imogene Pass was probably the best thing that happened to me on the TransAmerica Trail. Had I made it over the summit, I probably would have died falling down the other side. That was my thinking as I cruised into Telluride, Colorado, a year later to resume the TAT where I had left off.

TransAmerica Trail part 2

Back in the Saddle on the TransAmerica Trail

After my crash on the TAT, it took six months before I could walk without crutches or a cane. Even a year later, I still had a limp and took stairs slowly. During my convalescence, I had plenty of time to reflect on my TAT experience. Instead of a solo effort like before, I would have my buddy Nathen shadow me in my Jeep and pop-up trailer. We would stay in touch via satellite communicators, and he would be setting up camp and carrying spares, gas, gear, and beer. This would allow me to ride my KTM 500 EXC unencumbered by heavy, hard-to-balance gear.

Since I was laid up in the hospital after my crash with my leg put back together with metal screws and plates, I paid a local guy to recover my KTM from Imogene Pass.

TransAmerica Trail part 2 Imogene Pass
Imogene Pass – the highest point on the trail and the alpha and omega of my journey.

Nearly a year after my fateful tumble, I drove my Jeep and trailer to Grand Junction, where the bike had remained untouched in a friend’s garage. Nathen flew in from Philadelphia, and we loaded the bike into the trailer and drove down to Montrose, where the KTM got an overhaul. Near Telluride, Nathen and I did a shakedown run on Last Dollar Road, an unpaved scenic byway.

The next day, I resumed my TAT journey by riding up to Imogene Pass and a little beyond to the exact spot where I had fallen and ended my first attempt. I had been told that the hardest part of the route to the pass was the 20-mile eastern approach from Ouray. The western approach from Telluride was only about 6 miles; a guy told me his friend did it in a Subaru. I naively figured I’d head up and be back in time for lunch. However, about halfway up, near to the abandoned mining town of Tomboy, the route turned treacherous, and once more, I was pushed to ride beyond my capabilities.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
One of Colorado’s high-elevation off-road routes.

At the time of my crash a year earlier, I was in top TAT shape. I had been on the bike almost two months at that point, having traversed half the continent and crossed over the Great Divide. This time, I was carrying enough hardware in my legs that a hard fall would have it all poking through my skin like a porcupine. Moreover, last time, after surviving one trail atrocity or another, I could say to myself, “Well, I’ll never do that again.” This time I was burdened with the knowledge that I would have to go back down the same way I was going up. If I fell down and broke my leg again – and I almost did! – absolutely no one, not even my mother, would feel sorry for me. I took it all slowly and managed to make it back down to Telluride in one piece. 

All Downhill from Here

From Imogene Pass back down, I was on the TransAmerica Trail again. I followed GPSKevin’s route from Telluride to Utah, where I rejoined Sam Correro’s route. (See “TAT? Which TAT?” sidebar in the first installment of the TransAmerica Trail story.) The weather was great and the scenery was awesome.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Utah is the most awesome – and most challenging – part of the TAT.

In Utah, just south of Monticello, wishing to avoid the long desert bits that would push the limits of my gas tank’s capacity, I switched over to the Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR), following it all the way through Moab and up the eastern edge of Utah into Wyoming. We set up a series of checkpoints where I would communicate to Nathen whenever I crossed a major road. That way, if I ran into trouble, he’d know where to start looking for me.

Our first night of camping was at Warner Lake State Campground, which sits at 9,400 feet in the La Sal Mountains near Moab. I was getting reacquainted with my KTM, enjoying its unladen lightness, and having Nathen waiting for me at a prepared campsite with steaks and beer was even better than I imagined it would be.

I had naively thought that once I left Colorado’s San Juan range, the rest of the TAT would be easier. Of course, I was wrong. Many of the BDR sections in Utah require serious enduro skills to get over and through sand, rocks, and steep ledges. Since hitting Moab, I was having three or four near-death experiences a day, and I was starting to get a little PTSD because of it.

TransAmerica Trail part 2 Bear Lake
Bear Lake, straddling Utah and Idaho, was a welcome place to catch our breath after days in the high country.

I don’t know what guys with those big ol’ Winnebago adventure bikes do when the trail gets so steep that you mostly see just sky out of your peripheral vision while you careen downhill, your gear riding on the small of your back, your feet pressing on the pegs to keep your crotch from shoving the tankbag into the handlebar, feeling that handlebar flex, moving faster than your engine can brake you, when even a glance at the front brake might tuck the front end and the only thing between you and oblivion is a little tap-tap-tap-tap on the rear brake, none of which slows you much when you hit one of those 14-foot switchback drops where you have to do a 180-degree slide turn right at the exact spot where water and gravel collect on that part of the bobsled run. 

And if the trail is not solid rock with smaller rocks piled on, it’s sandy shale with 10-inch water ruts running parallel and diagonally down the slope, overlooking a canyon with broken trees and whitewater rapids roaring hundreds of feet below. It’s not if but when you will fall. When you do, Mr. Adventure Bike, if you don’t die or wreck your bike, can you pick it all up and get back on? I’m not talking about lifting the 500-lb beast in your driveway first thing in the morning but rather picking it up on a steep slope of shale, nose-down, in the late afternoon, far from home, when darkness looms and every delay means further loss of light, when your arms feel like wet spaghetti and your knee or ankle is sprained and your ribs hurt when you breathe, which comes out as a gasping wheeze anyway because of the altitude. 

Then it’s another trick to get back on that tall-ass bike – and harder still to start it and get going again. Unlike that time in Colorado when I somehow entered a mystical fugue state and glided over some rough patches, in Utah I wasn’t picked up by Charon and ferried across the River Styx.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Heavy traffic in the summer adds to the difficulty of Colorado’s high-elevation off-road routes.

Out of My Hands

After being so tense for so long, I finally numbed out, held on, and let the bike figure out how to get down the mountain on its own. I accepted that I was probably going to fall every day no matter what. Thankfully, I had good quality body armor, gloves, boots, and helmet, all of which had been tested and held up, even to the point when the bones beneath them gave way.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Much of Utah and the Great Basin required careful navigation.

My denouement arrived when I came face-to-face with a downhill flume that appeared to be made entirely of bowling balls. Partway down the slope, my front tire got stuck between two boulders, leaving me holding everything upright on tippy toes on a third boulder, with the clutch pulled in and about 75 more yards of steep bowling balls to go.

Well, I did my part, was my last thought as I kicked the front tire loose. Gravity and the KTM took me up over a boulder and down into the bowling alley. I hit a big rock head-on, bounced backward, and rolled over it. Then another and another, like bumper cars on a slope, bouncing and hitting and banging my way downhill.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
It was a clear night when we free-camped on the prairie, and we saw millions of stars.

After a long day of nothing but rocks, it was dusk before I made it to camp. When I got there, the tent was set up but nothing else: no food on the barbecue, no cold beer, no smiling face to greet me. Nathen was curled up in his sleeping bag, unconscious. I was frustrated but figured he must have altitude sickness, so it was an MRE for dinner and an early campfire alone.

The next morning was freezing cold, and for the first time, I was not excited to greet the TAT. We were in the Uinta Mountains, in Utah’s panhandle east of Salt Lake City, among 10,000-feet-plus Bald Mountain and Hayden Peak, surrounded by alpine lakes. It was some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve seen anywhere in the world, the air perfumed by pine. I mostly remember that part of the trip like a dream.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
During the summer, some campgrounds – like this one in the La Sal Mountains near Moab, Utah – need to be booked well in advance.

The trail moved past towering ridges and undulating high prairie as I crisscrossed between the borders of Utah and Wyoming, ultimately popping down to Bear Lake, where Nathen had already prepared camp. We stayed there for two days to recharge, sleeping most of the second day. 

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Having a chase vehicle to haul gear and a companion to help out – and greet me with a frosty beer and grilled steak at the end of each day – was a game changer.
TransAmerica Trail part 2
Having a buddy along was a game changer, but it was a challenge to maintain communication and keep the Jeep – and Nathen – functioning.

Cousins to the Rescue

As luck would have it, the BDR folks blazed a connecting trail from Utah to its Idaho route that perfectly synched me back up with Correro’s TransAmerica Trail. At Balancing Rock, I left the TAT to follow the original Oregon Trail. One of the highlights of my cross-country journey was tracing the wagon-wheel ruts of America’s pioneers. I navigated my own dirt route to Three Island State Park – a major obstacle for covered wagons in those times – where I picked up Idaho’s state-run Main Oregon Trail Backcountry Byway, a 100-mile dirt route that ends at Bonneville Point.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
This 102-mile byway follows the wagon ruts of the pioneers on the Oregon Trail.

Nathen and I headed southwest to Melba, Idaho, where my cousins Calvin and Corrina live. We faced double jeopardy: Nathen, who had been listless for days, couldn’t get out of bed, and we had mechanical issues with the Jeep. We took Nathen to urgent care, where he was diagnosed with Lyme disease, usually contracted through a tick bite. I felt bad that I had pushed and prodded him to keep moving; I thought he was just malingering. Nathen flew home to Philly, and I left the Jeep with a mechanic and my trailer with Calvin and Corrina and reconfigured the KTM so I could finish the TAT how I started a year ago: solo and unassisted.

Through Fire and Brimstone to the Sea

The Pacific Ocean Spur of Correro’s TAT skirts the desolate Great Basin, which worried me because of my limited gas range. A full day’s riding took me the farthest I had gone without refueling since leaving Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. When my engine started to sputter dry, I discovered that my fuel bladder was empty after part of it melted on the KTM’s exhaust pipe – fortunately it hadn’t ignited! Luckily, I was already on blacktop coming down from the mountains, so I pulled in the clutch and coasted into a gas station in the little frontier town of Canyon City, Oregon.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Some of the more remote areas were dead quiet.

With the desert behind me and milder mountains ahead, I faced an obstacle that almost ended my ride. The Devil’s Knob Complex Fire was raging uncontrolled and spreading, and the TAT ran right through the middle of it. I spent the night in a motel near the fire zone and plotted a route farther south toward Crater Lake. However, the fire shifted overnight, and I ended up needing a park ranger escort through a recently burned area. It was sobering to see the melted roadway and burned-up husks of what used to be a forest. The air smelled like charcoal.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Forest fires have the potential to ruin a TAT journey. Stay connected to track forest fires.

The rest of the day was one frustration after another as I navigated my way around the fire. When I got back on pavement, it was dark, and I was almost out of gas. I hit a few miles of Interstate 5, the first freeway I had been on since I started the trip. The experience was surreal. I saw more people than I had in days, sharing three lanes with all sorts of vehicles, the wind from passing semis buffeting my laden dirtbike.

I spent my last night of the TAT at the Wolf Creek Inn. Built in 1883, it’s the oldest continuously operated hotel in the Pacific Northwest – and reputedly one of the most haunted places in Oregon. Arising early the next morning, I was full of energy, ready to embark on the final leg of my trip-of-a-lifetime, the culmination of a two-year journey that started on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
Be careful when camping in bear-prone areas, especially if this guy is around.
TransAmerica Trail part 2
Many parts of the TAT pass through grazing areas and have gates to open and close.

A Great Last Day on the TransAmerica Trail

It was a beautiful day amidst magnificent scenery, and I wanted to savor every minute of every mile. I took a little country road excursion to Golden, a well-preserved ghost town, and farther along, after the road turned to dirt, I hoped to blaze a trail down to the TAT. What seemed like a good idea turned out to be a self-inflicted ordeal, and I ended up bushwhacking and nearly succumbing to a hostile blackberry bush.

It was almost noon when I got my last tank of gas. Throughout the entire trip, I had gotten only one flat tire, back in Tennessee. The experience had cost me an entire day, so when I had new tires mounted in Colorado, I had the shop install a bib mousse in the front tire instead of a tube. That puncture-proof doughnut of foam probably prevented multiple flats when I was bouncing from rock to rock like a pinball in Utah. However, at the end of the trail, it went from being merely squishy to downright flat with about 60 more miles to go.

TransAmerica Trail part 2 Three Island Crossing
Three Island Crossing was the make-or-break obstacle for many pioneers on the Oregon Trail. From there it’s due west to the Pacific.

I still needed to traverse the coastal Siskiyou Range, and the trail zigzagged from the treeline down to the Rogue River, then back up and down again, repeatedly. Because of the flat front tire, I kept my speed around 20 mph and took hundreds of turns as square as possible.

Still, it was a great day. The countryside was like a greatest hits album of the whole TAT. Along the Rogue River, the thick deciduous trees reminded me of Appalachia. Climbing into the mountains, the pines, chapparal, and vistas were emblematic of the West. In between were dank, moss-covered redwoods that heralded the Pacific. And I saw more wildlife than on any other stretch of the whole trip: elk, deer, a bear cub, a beaver, and an eagle.

TransAmerica Trail part 2 Shoshone Falls
Shoshone Falls on the Snake River near Twin Falls, Idaho, is not directly on the TAT, but it is a worthy detour.

At the rate I was going, it was going to be a stretch to make it to the coast before dark. But somewhere up in the mountains when the road forked, there was a sign in the direction I was going that said “COAST.” That recharged me, but it was hours later before I finally rounded a tree-lined corner and came upon U.S. Route 101. I was met with a cold blast of wind and the open ocean. Just like that the GPS route ended, and the TransAmerica Trail was over.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
It was heartening to see this sign on my last day of the TAT.

It was a few miles south on 101 to Port Orford, the most westerly town in the lower 48 states. I hugged the shoulder to ride slow enough to keep my tire together and not get run over. Orford is a fishing entrepot exposed to the rough sea. I found access down to the beach for the ritual dunking of my front wheel in the Pacific, as I had done in the Atlantic when I started my trip more than a year ago.

The wind was strong, the sand was soft, and the tide was coming in quickly. It was all I could do to take off my gloves for a selfie and keep my bike upright. About a foot and a half of water rushed over me, soaking my boots and burying my rims. It was tricky to get out of there, and with that flat front tire, I barely made it back up the eroded slippery cliff to the main road.

TransAmerica Trail part 2
It damn sure wasn’t easy, but I finally made it to the Pacific.

I rode back to a dock where there was a little shack that looked like a bar. The cranes were hauling up the last boats of the day as I pulled up to the fisherman’s tavern, leaned my bike against a post, and shut off the engine. That’s when the enormity of the whole thing washed over me.

Stuffing my gloves in my helmet, I pushed open the door, and yelled out the coolest thing ever emitted from my lips: “Hey everybody! I just rode across America on a dirtbike!”

TransAmerica Trail part 2 Port Orford
One of the best days of my life included celebratory beers and oysters at this fisherman’s bar in Port Orford.

I ordered a mug of beer, a dozen oysters, and a flounder sandwich. After a second beer, when I asked for the check, I was told that one of the other patrons had covered my tab. Later, I was the only guest in a little redwoods lodge, where I watched the sunset from a hot tub, with a bottle of champagne at my side.

Listen to Dave Scott’s unfiltered tale of his entire TAT adventure in Episodes 46, 48, and 50 of the Rider Magazine Insider Podcast.

The post How the West was Won: Finishing the TransAmerica Trail appeared first on Rider Magazine.

Source: RiderMagazine.com

A Solo Journey on the TransAmerica Trail

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
There were beautiful views along the spine of the Ozark Mountains. Photo by Rick Koch.

“You realize that we’re moving to mandatory evacuation,” the park ranger told me as I pulled up to the campground kiosk to check in. It was August 2020, and Hurricane Isaias was bearing down on the East Coast just as I was about to start my “Adventure of a Lifetime.” The storm was expected to make landfall right where we were standing at North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

A month earlier, my KTM 500 EXC-F had been loaded on a truck in Louisiana, bound for Outer Banks Harley-Davidson. I had flown into Norfolk, Virginia, with plans to pick up my bike and spend a week at the beach with friends before starting my solo journey on the TransAmerica Trail.

Now I was doing battle with cars and RVs trying to outrun a hurricane. My KTM was overloaded with an expedition’s worth of gear plus a now-pointless beach towel, umbrella, mask, and fins, making it as unwieldy as the rattletrap jalopy of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath. I made my way north along the Outer Banks and felt lucky to snag a room at an overpriced roach motel in the ominous-sounding village of Kill Devil Hills.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
First day of the TransAmerica Trail: baptizing the bike in the Atlantic Ocean.

I had heard that the pavement ended just north of Corolla and from there you could ride on the beach into Virginia, so I got an early start and baptized my knobbies in the Atlantic brine. The plan was to ride west to the Great Dismal Swamp and drop down to Sam Correro’s TransAmerica Trail from there (see “TAT? Which TAT?” sidebar at end of story). It was a gorgeous day in one of America’s most beautiful places – the calm before the storm – and as soon as I was off the beaten track, I thought to myself: I’m doing it. I’m actually riding coast-to-coast on a dirtbike!

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
The lush mountain scenery of North Carolina (missing only the sound of flowing creeks and the wet, minty smells of the ferns and forest).

I rode west across the causeway to mainland North Carolina where it got really hot, really fast. My riding gear became a soggy wetsuit. I pulled into a state park to re-sort my gear and camp for the night. Just as I entered the parking lot, my bike skidded, and I almost toppled over. My heavy load had pushed the rear fender into the exhaust, melting a strap, which had rolled up into my sprocket, as well as one of the turnsignals and the license plate mount. The state park was closed because of Covid, so after re-shuffling my gear, I was back on tarmac. It was still hot, and black clouds trailed behind me. 

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
The Tail of the Dragon is not just for sportbikes! Photo by Killboy.com

Suddenly a bird hit my thigh, bounced into my chest, and flew over my shoulder. Wait, that wasn’t a bird, it was my phone! After a tedious half hour of tacking back and forth down the road, I spotted it – functional but with a cracked screen. When I climbed off the KTM to retrieve it, I felt woozy and was no longer sweating. I held onto a telephone pole to keep from fainting and succumbed to a bout of rib-wracking dry heaves. I was on the verge of a full-on heat stroke. Nearby I saw a kudzu-covered shack that turned out to be a juke joint-cum-country store where I sucked down three Gatorades and laid down over the top of the old-school ice box. Had I not dropped my phone, I wouldn’t have stopped riding and might have died. 

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
A slick, rail-less board bridge in Mississippi is still better than a muddy river crossing.

Hurricane Isaias caught up with me near Appomattox, Virginia, and I ducked into a gas station overhang to put on my raingear for the first time. It fit rather snuggly over all my off-road gear, and when I tried to swing my leg over the enormous pile of kit on the KTM, I fell over, my legs splayed akimbo with the bike and bags toppling on top of me.

I hadn’t even put a wheel on the TAT yet. Was I in over my head?

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Impending rain and nightfall on a desolate part of the TAT in Virginia meant it was time to find gas and shelter.

A Decision is Made

If I bailed out, I’d still have to get my KTM back home to Louisiana. Shipping it home would be expensive and take a month. The 500 EXC-F is an enduro, the last thing you’d want to ride on the freeway, so I’d have to take little secondary roads back down south. That pretty much sounded like the TAT.

I decided I was unlikely to make it all the way to Oregon as planned. The TAT dipped into central Mississippi, and from there it was only about three hours to my house. The revised plan was to put Oregon out of my mind and just focus on getting home.

Removing the pressure to complete the entire TAT lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders. The storm had passed, and it was a beautiful day with blue skies and cooler temperatures. Virginia is lush and green, and the rain brought out flowers and butterflies. Narrow lanes and gravel roads weaved between red barns and fields of mowed pasture, eventually climbing into cool, dark forests. I could sense the temperature and humidity changes around each dip and turn. I could smell little creeks, pines, and vegetation, the very earth itself.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
A picnic shelter makes for an ideal hammock camping spot.

I veered off the TAT to have a hearty lunch at the Devils Backbone Basecamp Brewpub. With the views, live music, and great weather, I could have spent the day there, but instead I mounted up and crossed the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I stopped briefly at the farm where Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper that led the United States to feed the world. In the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, I camped in a clearing next to the trail, just me and the bike and a million stars.

Soft Mud Makes a Hard Slog on the TransAmerica Trail

By the time I blazed my way through Virginia, North Carolina, corners of Georgia and Alabama, and into Tennessee, I had perfected my packing and loading system, felt at home behind the bars of my KTM, fought less with my GPS, and really began to enjoy myself.

Tennessee was a turning point. Some dear friends rode their Harley down to Lynchburg to join me for dinner and offer encouragement. Just off the trail in Counce, I had breakfast at the home of TAT founder Sam Correro, and he personally adorned my bike with one of his TAT stickers on my front fender. And a buddy in St. Louis contacted me and said he’d meet me in Arkansas so we could ride together for a few days. It was settled: I was back on the TransAmerica Trail to Oregon!

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
A proud moment with TAT progenitor Sam Correro in front of his house in Counce, Tennessee. Why isn’t this man in the AMA Hall of Fame already?

But it wasn’t easy. For many, the hardest part of the TAT east of the Mississippi is the myriad of water crossings in Tennessee. The two worst ones – which you see most often in YouTube videos of TAT-ending epic fails – occur the first 10 miles after you enter the Volunteer State, one right after the other. The gracious host of the motorcycle-friendly Lodge at Tellico lessened my anxiety by sharing some strategies on how to manage them. “Worse comes to worst,” he said, “it’s not too far to hike back here, and I can get ya out.”

In Mississippi, the remnants of Hurricane Marco darkened the skies, and rain turned the TAT into retreat-from-Stalingrad, diaper-full-of-diarrhea sludge. I found refuge in the college town of Oxford, where I checked into a hotel, ordered a steak for dinner, and enjoyed a rest day waiting for things to dry out. But I couldn’t dally because yet another hurricane threatened to make a bad situation worse.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
“If it gets too rough, I can always turn around.” Not always easy to do on a steep, rocky trail.

The thing about being in way over your head is that you usually don’t realize it until you’re actually in way over your head. At the southernmost part of the TAT in central Mississippi, I turned down a damp red-dirt road and headed east. The red clay grew more viscous as I followed the ruts others before me had made. In places the muddy track grew wide where folks attempted workarounds to what looked like permanent sludge holes. There came a series of undulating rises through a canopy forest tunnel with the road getting increasingly soupier. I thought about turning back, but it would have been a long detour well off the TAT.

Well, this is where the ‘adventure part’ begins, I thought. Slowly and surely wins the race. Take it easy, stay focused, and we’ll get through this.

One little hill had me spinning my wheel in a red rooster tail of muck going up, then sliding sideways out of control to the bottom, my tires coated like frosting on a Krispy Kreme donut. Now I really had to stick with the trail because there was absolutely no way in hell I could make it back up the slime track I just slid down. I lasted only about a minute more before my KTM became completely stuck up to the rear sprocket. When I dismounted, there was no need for a kickstand because the bike was cemented in place. I walked down the road to scout ahead. Slipping and sliding in my moto boots, each one weighted down by pounds of Mississippi clay, I peered over the rise and saw … more muddy hills, an endless procession of them to the horizon and beyond.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Stuck up to the swingarm in the Mudpit of Despair at the southernmost part of the trail in Mississippi.

The hot, humid air was thick, and I felt nauseous. I took off my helmet, gloves, jacket, boots, and even my pants and sat down on the side of the road. A black butterfly landed on my bike, then flew over and sat on my knee. We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. I just sat there, hot and numb. I did not know what to do. Another storm would come that evening – maybe that afternoon – and no way was another vehicle coming down this road. Not today. Maybe not ever.

Thoughts of living the rest of my life in the woods like Grizzly Adams soon dissipated along with my stock of water. Scrolling around on my Garmin, I saw a little spur a few miles back that looked like it might lead to pavement. I stripped the bike of all the gear and scraped off as much clay as I could. With no other choice, I backtracked, dragging the machine sideways over the hills and making multiple trips to retrieve my gear. 

Back on blacktop, I stopped at a store and downed a water, a Gatorade, and a Mountain Dew. I was in Bobby Gentry country, and the lyric “Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge” played in my head as I thought that maybe what Billy Joe tossed off the Tallahatchie Bridge was a mud-encrusted KTM.

That night the hotel’s fire alarm went off just as I began a relaxing soak in a hot bath. Guests were summoned to the lobby because the hurricane was kicking up tornadoes in the area.

Was I cursed? Had my karmic debt finally come due?

I took a day to visit Graham KTM, a dealership in Senatobia, and the great guys there changed the oil, adjusted the brakes, and installed a trick tail piece that better supported the weight of my luggage. While they were power-washing pounds of clay off my bike, I asked the shop fellows what strategy locals used to ride those gooey roads. “Man, we never ride in that shit.”

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
The Graham KTM team in Senatobia, Mississippi, replaced my melted turnsignal/license plate carrier with a trick (and much lighter) rear cowling and power-washed away several pounds of red clay. Their advice for riding through the Magnolia State’s tire-sucking mud: “Don’t.”

Beyond Big Muddy

Arkansas is a special place. Its mountains are not part of any other continental ridgeline, and the culture – equal parts Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern – is unique. Ozark people know the TAT, and hospitality and homemade signs of encouragement prevailed along the trail.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
My buddy Rick Koch rode down from St. Louis to join me for the Arkansas portion of the TAT.

In addition to the beautiful vistas and bountiful barbecue, Arkansas highlights included a gentleman who serves TAT riders iced tea from his back porch while photographing the different motorcycles and recording them in his ledger, the little TAT Shak that’s open and free to anyone who wants to stop, and spending a few days riding with Rick Koch, an old college buddy who had come down from St. Louis.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Percy Kale, who lives just off the TAT in Marvel, Arkansas, documents motorcycles that pass through.

I had no preconceived expectations about Oklahoma, yet it provided some of the best memories of the trip. Intermittent rain and challenging mud made for slow going, and I slid from town to town to take shelter through countryside that I otherwise probably would have blasted though.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Use of a little trailer in the woods is free to all TAT riders in Central Arkansas.
TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Most of the Arkansas TAT rolls through “dry” counties, so stock up on beer when you can!

I met some of the nicest people of the whole trip, and I visited the little town of Beaver during the World Championship Cow Chip Throwing Contest. 

The Way-out West

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Oklahoma is the bridge between the Midwestern Plains and the Western Prairie.

New Mexico and most of Colorado passed by too quickly. I set back the clock another hour and entered the Pacific watershed after crossing the Great Divide. It was weird to see patches of snow after almost passing out from heat stroke earlier in the trip.

In a little bunkbed bungalow in Sargents, Colorado – a haven for hunters and off-road enthusiasts where I feasted on elk meatloaf – I awoke to shrill whistles and shouts of “yip, yip yip!” Local cowboys were rounding up the herd outside my cabin’s back window.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
The Tomichi Creek Trading Post is a last-chance gas jumping-off point for adventurers, and its cafe serves elk meatloaf and craft beer. I awoke here with frost on my bike amidst the whistles and shouts of a full-blown cattle drive.

After weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, it was 30 degrees outside, and I scraped frost off the map pocket of my tankbag. The dip in temperature tripped the aspen trees, and just like that, almost all of them went from pale green to vibrant yellow.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
It froze overnight in Colorado, and the aspen trees all popped at once!
TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
The beginning of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado.

Riding high in the Rockies, I went over Black Sage Pass (9,725 ft), Tomichi Pass (11,962 ft), Los Pinos Pass (10,509 ft), and Slumgullion Pass (11,529 ft) and then zig-zagged down switchbacks into Lake City, said to be the most isolated town in Colorado.

Continuing west to Ouray meant going over Engineer Pass (12,800 ft), which is surrounded by barren tundra that reminded me of the Karakoram Mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Gale-force winds brought a blizzard and total whiteout seconds after taking this picture.

It was freezing cold and extremely windy at the summit, and it was a struggle to keep my loaded bike from falling over as I took off my gloves for a quick selfie. Snow started blowing sideways, and soon it was a complete whiteout. Fog on my goggles turned to frost, and the grade was so steep I was reluctant to move my hands from the handlebars to wipe them. Slinking down the precipice was all the more unnerving because I had to contend with Jeeps and side-by-sides coming the other way. A strip of mud and trickling water on the inside track became gravel-covered ice, forcing me to move closer to the outside ledge.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Colorado’s high-country tundra reminded me of the Karakoram Mountains along the Afghan/Pakistani border.

I never felt comfortable on those steep switchbacks. My bodyweight kept trying to put me over the handlebars, and I couldn’t scoot back because of my loaded luggage. I washed out my front tire on one gravelly switchback, and a passing motorcyclist going up the hill stopped and helped me right things.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Straight up-and-down canyon walls in the San Juan Mountains, through which 50-mph wind gusts are typical.

After arriving in Ouray, a long soak in the warm mineral waters of the public hot springs was just what I needed to close out an incredible day that featured sunshine, gale-force winds, a blizzard, freezing rain, and more than a few pucker moments.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Taking a break in Trinidad, Colorado. Many TAT riders get a tire change nearby at Topar Racing.

My Dear Imogene

From Ouray, there were several options. Sam Correro’s route would send me south on the Million Dollar Highway, one of the most beautiful roads in America. Instead, I opted for the more adventurous Yankee Boy Basin route over Imogene Pass (13,114 ft) to Telluride.

The weather the next day was probably the single most beautiful day of the trip. I was in top TAT shape, the bike was running great, and my gear was dialed. The autumn leaves were vibrant, and there were many natural and historic things to see along the way. At one overlook, I met a young guy from California in a new Jeep who had stopped to let some air out of his tires. He was on his honeymoon, and the couple had planned for more than a year to drive this road, which is a bucket-list destination for many off-roaders.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
Crossing the Great Divide was a major milestone, but higher, steeper passes were still ahead.

Even though it was a Tuesday in late September, there were a lot of vehicles on the road, especially side-by-sides, not all of which yielded the right of way. One of the trickiest technical bits – a staircase of rock and shale that plummeted down to a precipice below – required a careful study of the approach. The trail devolved into a giant rockface about 100 feet wide that had shale-like “stairs” of varying widths and heights. You must go up the stairs diagonally, pick a shelf to straighten out on, and then go back down diagonally again. On two wheels, this is a feat that requires just the right mix of momentum, balance, skill, and luck to avoid falling off the cliff.

Just as I decided on a route up and hit the gas, two side-by-sides came across from the other direction, forcing me to scramble up the stairs higher than planned. They squeezed by without mishap, tooting and waving as they passed, but I was stuck at the top of the staircase, holding myself to the cliff with just my right leg and about two knobs’ worth of tire. I perched like that for some time, a few Jeeps passing by closely without acknowledgement. When my knees began to shake and I wasn’t sure I could hold on any longer, I launched myself down, kicked off the ledge, and skipped down the stairs, just catching the lip of the trail.

Shaken, I knew backtracking was no longer an option. I was committed to summitting, come hell or high water.

Next I came to a deep, narrow stream filled with softball- to bowling ball-sized rocks. I was at the top of a waterfall that poured into the canyon below. With a cliff on one side and a house-sized boulder on the other, there was no workaround. Before fear got the better of me, I gunned it, and my front wheel skimmed the top of the water toward the far bank. The strong current and slippery, unstable rocks caused me to slip sideways, and I started to fall over, but somehow my boot caught a rock and I bounced back upright as I gassed it over the finish line.

Soaking wet and hyperventilating, it took me awhile to regain my composure. I rode around the big boulder only to find that the little stream I crashed through was but a small tributary of a larger stream that now roared before me. The trail required me to ride up a 6-foot-high steep, mossy waterfall and then hang a sharp left up a switchback. Um…

Remember when I said that you don’t really know you’re in over your head until you’re in over your head? I was stuck between two streams I could not cross. I shut off the bike, took off my helmet, and sat for a long while, feeling demoralized. It was getting dark in the crevasse I was tucked into, and I had to make a decision. It wasn’t like I could establish residency in the shelf between the streams and have my mail forwarded there.

So I put my helmet on and gave it a shot. I closed my eyes and let out a scream as I popped the clutch, laying on a fistful of throttle. The weirdest thing is, I have no further memory of the incident. Suddenly I was on a wide, flat bit of dirt road farther up the summit, out of earshot of the water, but I don’t recall how I got there. It’s like God’s hand reached down and delivered me. One moment I’m crashing into a waterfall, and the next I’m back in my body, calm and relaxed and tootling down the trail, none the worse for wear.

My idyll didn’t last long. In full view of the barren summit, I now faced the final stretch and what for many is the hardest obstacle of the trail. Blocking the final approach to the summit was a large boulder. There looked to be a little ramp around it on dirt, so I took that route, but near the top of the boulder, just around the corner out of view, there appeared a 4-foot ledge. I came to a sudden stop, sliding up on the tank. In trying to turn around on the steep slope, I lost my balance and fell over.

I was above 10,000 feet, short of breath, and my arms felt like wet spaghetti noodles. I was too weak to lift my bike, so I started unloading my gear. Just then, California Honeymoon Jeep Guy came up the trail and said, “Hey, Louisiana KTM Dude!” He put my bags in the back of his Jeep and promised to drop them off at the summit. We then pushed and pulled my bike over the ledge, and I served as spotter for his careful crawl up the face of the boulder.

Near the summit, several vehicles were stacked up at the base of the steepest incline I had ever seen. After Jeep Guy left, I faced another 3-foot stepup to continue on the trail. I was exhausted and again unsure of what to do. The only other bike I had seen was a mangled BMW in the back of a pickup truck.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott

Just then a side-by-side pulled up next to me, driven by a tour guide. “You look stuck,” he said. “Are you alright?” He told me he was a KTM man himself and that he often enjoyed this trail with his enduro friends. The ledge looked vertical but actually had some angle to it, he said, so the trick was to hit it head on with enough speed to make the next righthand switchback and up the shale slope.

“Don’t worry what line you take or how sloppy it gets,” he said. “Just stay on the gas. Don’t let up. You can do this!”

His enthusiasm was encouraging, and being relieved of my luggage was liberating. After a few false starts, I recommitted and used my “waterfall” technique, screaming as I accelerated into the ledge. When my front tire hit, it lifted straight up into the air. The impact knocked my body back, but I held on with vice grips of adrenaline and gassed it. After going aerial, somehow I touched down where I needed to be.

Maintaining momentum, I threaded around some other vehicles, made a sharp right at speed, and went up into the scree, fishtailing sideways and throwing rocks everywhere, clawing my way up the steep slope. My engine howled wonderfully like I’d never heard before. “Woohoo!” I heard from below, and I thought, I’m doing this! Up and up I went. Just as my front wheel lurched onto flat ground, with my spinning back tire not far behind, the KTM died.

WTF?! How? What? Why?!

My forward movement stopped, and for a moment I was in suspended animation, half on and half off the slope – like Wile E. Coyote when he first runs off the cliff, and then looks down…

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
In view of the Imogene Pass summit sign, I crashed at just over 14,000 feet.

Pulling in the clutch, the KTM restarted first pop. But I felt the sickening feeling of going backward. Squeezing the front brake lever just caused the front tire to skid. Locked up and sliding backward, I became disoriented.

Instinctively, I put my right foot down to arrest my slide, but the incline was steeper on that side, and my boot touched nothing. My body shifted to the right, causing me to whiskey-throttle into a sideways wheelie that knocked me backward at an awkward angle. As I landed hard, I felt a crunch below my right knee – what turned out to be a tibial plateau fracture – and I heard my coach shout, “Oh no!” from below.

Within sight of people taking selfies at the Imogene Pass summit sign, the KTM and I tumbled to a halt on the slope, bringing my TransAmerica Trail journey to an end – for now.

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott
A celestial vista (and a happy pill) gave me a smile before the gurney strapped to the back of a side-by-side took me the long way down to Ouray.

TransAmerica Trail Sidebar: TAT? Which TAT

TransAmerica Trail part 1 Dave Scott

In the mid-1980s, dual-sport enthusiast Sam Correro began scouting and mapping a mostly off-road trail from Tennessee to Oregon, which he called the TransAmerica Trail. Correro’s TAT now includes a main trail that runs west from West Virginia to Utah, north to Idaho, and then east to Wisconsin. Spurs extend the TAT to the Atlantic, the Pacific, and along the Rockies.

Correro continues to ride the TAT and updates it regularly. At TransAmTrail.com, he sells maps, rolls charts, and GPS tracks. He also provides his phone number and email address to those who order his maps. While on the TAT, I texted Correro to let him know how much fun I was having, and he invited me for breakfast at his home, which is just off the trail in Tennessee.

Another resource is gpsKevinAdventureRides.com, which offers digitized TAT maps as well as GPS tracks. Much of gpsKevin’s main TAT follows the same route as Correro’s, but he offers alternate spurs from Tennessee to New York and from Moab, Utah, to Los Angeles.

Whereas the TAT runs mostly east-to-west, Backcountry Discovery Routes (RideBDR.com) run south-to-north in individual states, and some parts of BDRs in western states overlap with the TAT.

For my trip, I bought maps and GPS tracks from Correro, gpsKevin, and BDR and put together my own trip, mostly following Correro’s route. Since I’m a history buff, I incorporated some of America’s original routes: the Trail of Tears, the Cimarron and Santa Fe Trail, the Mormon Trail, and Lewis and Clark’s Route of Discovery. And as a fan of American culture, I included parts of music trails through the Appalachians and Ozarks and sought out the best local barbecue and regional cuisine.

There are many planning resources available online. Do your homework, prepare yourself and your bike, and go for it! – DS

Listen to our interviews with Dave Scott in the Rider Insider Podcast, Episode 46 and Episode 48.

This article originally appeared in the November 2022 issue of Rider.

The post A Solo Journey on the TransAmerica Trail first appeared on Rider Magazine.
Source: RiderMagazine.com