Trans America Trail: A month's journey in a 96 Jeep XJ.
- Thread starter NHenson
- Start date
Garage Yourself
New member
Thank you!!! My reservations about doing this in my XJ are gone!!
NHenson
Observer
dstn2bdoa & justjoshnya: Thanks for reading. I'm glad you guys enjoyed the thread. justjoshnya: Just do some as you are able. The time factor was definitely a roadblock to me at the beginning, but splitting it up made it manageable to fit it in around my work schedule.
Joe: It seems that you will be able to do most everything except parts of CO, UT, and NV. Tennessee and Arkansas are mostly a piece of cake for a 2WD depending on the conditions (possible mud). I drove the majority of the trail in 2WD, but definitely enjoyed 4WD Low for some of the sections, mostly for gear range (some for traction). I would make sure that you have a way to recover and turn around if the conditions get too bad.
I would consider taking the "big bike" bypasses in almost every situation and stay out of the river bottoms with the 2WD. There are also a couple tight places in the CO, UT, NV sections that I would avoid. See my videos of the underpass under the freeway from "TAT III Day 4" in post #100. I also addressed some width & height questions that another user had here.
There are many beautiful places out there that are not the TAT, but the type of travel with roll charts was an attractive part of using the TAT.
jpnut37: I drove across the country to start the trip each summer. It is a lot of driving, but the XJ is my daily commute vehicle too, so it was needed at home.
Garage Yourself: Just get out and do it. I'm glad that reading our story makes it an easier decision for you.
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76Explorer
New member
Excellent read! I'd never heard of the TAT before but after your great write up I'll have to try out some of the sections near my home in Tennessee. Thanks for the inspiration.
SirWilliamGoes
Adventurer
GREAT READ! I am preparing on going myself in Apr. I enjoyed reading about your experience and cant wait to do it!!
Jeeper4life
Adventurer
Awesome write up!
dakota123
Adventurer
Ill be heading out in May! On my way home upon graduation. Keep in touch!
Happy Wanderer
New member
I just spent the last half hour reading through your adventure. Thank you very much for sharing it with us. The TAT is on my bucket list, and since I live at the destination end of the trail I'm torn with by how to get to the starting line. Thinking that doing it in reverse might be the answer, though I'd have to spool the roll chart in reverse, or read it in a mirror or something. 
Oh yeah, and I want to do it in my CJ5 with only the bikini top. Yeah, I know........
Oh yeah, and I want to do it in my CJ5 with only the bikini top. Yeah, I know........
Danimal
Adventurer
Sounds like my kind of trip. Do it. Bring a camera and a notebook and share the story afterward.
*edit* waterproof pen and paper, that is...
Dan
ianmackaye
New member
joined up just so I could comment and say THANK YOU to you both for this awesome write-up! loved it.
Cottontail
Easy Street on Mud Tires
I just spent the last half hour reading through your adventure. Thank you very much for sharing it with us. The TAT is on my bucket list, and since I live at the destination end of the trail I'm torn with by how to get to the starting line. Thinking that doing it in reverse might be the answer, though I'd have to spool the roll chart in reverse, or read it in a mirror or something.
Oh yeah, and I want to do it in my CJ5 with only the bikini top. Yeah, I know........
You'd be better off driving to Tennessee and taking the TAT back east to west. If you visit the TAT website that was linked several pages earlier, there are several warning on the page that the TAT is not designed to be driven West to East. From Oregon you could work your way over to 90 and go through the Black Hills of South Dakota, see Mt. Rushmore, cut down into Chicago and see that city, and then into Cincinnati and down 75 to the Smokies to get to Jellico, TN to start the trip. I didn't count the days that these guys took, but the dual sport track is just shy of 5000 miles TN to OR, and is designed to cover about 200 miles a day, so I would expect 25 days +/- to run the actual TAT.
JeepExpeditions.org
Observer
I've been on thousands of miles of trails and other than Black Bear Pass I can't think of many that can't be done either way for any reason at all.
Why can't you do this trail from West to East ? Are they trying to keep all traffic running in one director for safety ? simplicity ?
Can anyone explain other than this is the way the person who originally developed this route made it?
Any reason why it can't continue to the Atlantic Ocean? There should be some decent two track trails thru western NC at least. The TAT map shows the route going north from TN into what looks like VA or WV, close to MD or the Chesapeake.
Why can't you do this trail from West to East ? Are they trying to keep all traffic running in one director for safety ? simplicity ?
Can anyone explain other than this is the way the person who originally developed this route made it?
Any reason why it can't continue to the Atlantic Ocean? There should be some decent two track trails thru western NC at least. The TAT map shows the route going north from TN into what looks like VA or WV, close to MD or the Chesapeake.
NHenson
Observer
joined up just so I could comment and say THANK YOU to you both for this awesome write-up! loved it.
I'm glad you guys enjoyed reading about our adventures. Don't hesitate to get out there and do it yourselves.
I, like you, would have loved to do it in one shot; splitting it up was the only way for us to accomplish it with our other lives that we live.
I just spent the last half hour reading through your adventure. Thank you very much for sharing it with us. The TAT is on my bucket list, and since I live at the destination end of the trail I'm torn with by how to get to the starting line. Thinking that doing it in reverse might be the answer, though I'd have to spool the roll chart in reverse, or read it in a mirror or something.
Oh yeah, and I want to do it in my CJ5 with only the bikini top. Yeah, I know........
You could definitely travel different directions on the roads and trails that this is based on. Originally, the trail was only on roll charts, making the direction of every turn and landmark different if you took it backward. You would also have to redo the roll charts to scroll backwards.
Now, with GPS, the story is a little different, but also some the same. I still like the feel of the paper roll and using paper maps that match them. This is a fool-proof way of navigation that does not depend on electronic gear. With that said, we also ran a computer back-up for our routes. This allowed us some freedom when looking for things off-trail and also for finding detours around and back to the other side of washouts, bridge-outs, etc.
The climbs on the trail itself have few up-steps, but several large down-steps when running east to west. It is easier going down the steps than up them, especially on the dual-sport bikes that it is planned for. The other physical complication comes from a couple of accesses to trails that come off the side of freeways. One side of the freeway gives access, the other side does not (this would be fairly easy to solve). It is also possible that some of the local trails that are used are one-direction trails. You would have to research each trail at the local level to figure this out. I did note one thing. . .on the very few trails that we saw other people, I only remember meeting a couple of people head on.
The best, up-to-date, trail information and FAQs can be found on www.transamtrail.com or some adventure rider sites.
pyrate
Rollin' along
Not to derail this thread but personally, it was a bit of a confidence booster for us to start from the east and get some of the kinks out before dealing w/what we considered more unforgiving terrain in the west. The east helped us with navigation and while we dealt w/ some mud and such, there was plenty of support nearby. As you head west, the distances are greater, the support can be less in some areas. So it's nice to have a bit of confidence before heading out.]