We printed Dave Scott’s story about using the TransAmerica Path from North Carolina to Colorado in our November 2022 Journey Concern and on our web site here, and it ended with an emergency evacuation at 13,000 ft within the San Juan Mountains. That is Half 2. –Ed.

Breaking my leg close to 13,114-foot Imogene Move was most likely the very best factor that occurred to me on the TransAmerica Path. Had I made it over the summit, I most likely would have died falling down the opposite aspect. That was my considering as I cruised into Telluride, Colorado, a yr later to renew the TAT the place I had left off.

Again within the Saddle on the TransAmerica Path

After my crash on the TAT, it took six months earlier than I might stroll with out crutches or a cane. Even a yr later, I nonetheless had a limp and took stairs slowly. Throughout my convalescence, I had loads of time to replicate on my TAT expertise. As a substitute of a solo effort like earlier than, I might have my buddy Nathen shadow me in my Jeep and pop-up trailer. We’d keep in contact through satellite tv for pc communicators, and he can be establishing camp and carrying spares, gasoline, gear, and beer. This is able to enable me to trip my KTM 500 EXC unencumbered by heavy, hard-to-balance gear.

Commercial

Since I used to be laid up within the hospital after my crash with my leg put again along with metallic screws and plates, I paid an area man to recuperate my KTM from Imogene Move.

Practically a yr after my fateful tumble, I drove my Jeep and trailer to Grand Junction, the place the bike had remained untouched in a good friend’s storage. Nathen flew in from Philadelphia, and we loaded the bike into the trailer and drove right down to Montrose, the place the KTM obtained an overhaul. Close to Telluride, Nathen and I did a shakedown run on Final Greenback Highway, an unpaved scenic byway.

The following day, I resumed my TAT journey by using as much as Imogene Move and a bit of past to the precise spot the place I had fallen and ended my first try. I had been instructed that the toughest a part of the path to the cross was the 20-mile japanese strategy from Ouray. The western strategy from Telluride was solely about 6 miles; a man instructed me his good friend did it in a Subaru. I naively figured I’d head up and be again in time for lunch. Nonetheless, about midway up, close to to the deserted mining city of Tomboy, the route turned treacherous, and as soon as extra, I used to be pushed to trip past my capabilities.

On the time of my crash a yr earlier, I used to be in prime TAT form. I had been on the bike virtually two months at that time, having traversed half the continent and crossed over the Nice Divide. This time, I used to be carrying sufficient {hardware} in my legs {that a} laborious fall would have all of it poking by my pores and skin like a porcupine. Furthermore, final time, after surviving one path atrocity or one other, I might say to myself, “Properly, I’ll by no means do this once more.” This time I used to be burdened with the information that I must return down the identical means I used to be going up. If I fell down and broke my leg once more – and I virtually did! – completely nobody, not even my mom, would really feel sorry for me. I took all of it slowly and managed to make it again right down to Telluride in a single piece. 

All Downhill from Right here

From Imogene Move again down, I used to be on the TransAmerica Path once more. I adopted GPSKevin’s route from Telluride to Utah, the place I rejoined Sam Correro’s route. (See “TAT? Which TAT?” sidebar within the first installment of the TransAmerica Trail story.) The climate was nice and the surroundings was superior.

In Utah, simply south of Monticello, wishing to keep away from the lengthy desert bits that may push the boundaries of my gasoline tank’s capability, I converted to the Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR), following it throughout Moab and up the japanese fringe of Utah into Wyoming. We arrange a sequence of checkpoints the place I might talk to Nathen each time I crossed a serious highway. That means, if I bumped into hassle, he’d know the place to begin in search of me.

Our first evening of tenting was at Warner Lake State Campground, which sits at 9,400 ft within the La Sal Mountains close to Moab. I used to be getting reacquainted with my KTM, having fun with its unladen lightness, and having Nathen ready for me at a ready campsite with steaks and beer was even higher than I imagined it could be.

I had naively thought that when I left Colorado’s San Juan vary, the remainder of the TAT can be simpler. After all, I used to be improper. Most of the BDR sections in Utah require critical enduro abilities to recover from and thru sand, rocks, and steep ledges. Since hitting Moab, I used to be having three or 4 near-death experiences a day, and I used to be beginning to get a bit of PTSD due to it.

I don’t know what guys with these huge ol’ Winnebago journey bikes do when the path will get so steep that you simply largely see simply sky out of your peripheral imaginative and prescient whilst you careen downhill, your gear using on the small of your again, your ft urgent on the pegs to maintain your crotch from shoving the tankbag into the handlebar, feeling that handlebar flex, shifting sooner than your engine can brake you, when even a look on the entrance brake may tuck the entrance finish and the one factor between you and oblivion is a bit of tap-tap-tap-tap on the rear brake, none of which slows you a lot if you hit a type of 14-foot switchback drops the place you need to do a 180-degree slide flip proper on the precise spot the place water and gravel acquire on that a part of the bobsled run. 

And if the path just isn’t stable rock with smaller rocks piled on, it’s sandy shale with 10-inch water ruts operating parallel and diagonally down the slope, overlooking a canyon with damaged bushes and whitewater rapids roaring a whole lot of ft beneath. It’s not if however when you’ll fall. While you do, Mr. Journey Bike, should you don’t die or wreck your bike, are you able to decide all of it up and get again on? I’m not speaking about lifting the 500-lb beast in your driveway very first thing within the morning however fairly selecting it up on a steep slope of shale, nose-down, within the late afternoon, removed from house, when darkness looms and each delay means additional lack of mild, when your arms really feel like moist spaghetti and your knee or ankle is sprained and your ribs harm if you breathe, which comes out as a gasping wheeze anyway due to the altitude. 

Then it’s one other trick to get again on that tall-ass bike – and tougher nonetheless to begin it and get going once more. Not like that point in Colorado after I by some means entered a mystical fugue state and glided over some tough patches, in Utah I wasn’t picked up by Charon and ferried throughout the River Styx.

Out of My Arms

After being so tense for therefore lengthy, I lastly numbed out, held on, and let the bike work out the right way to get down the mountain by itself. I accepted that I used to be most likely going to fall daily it doesn’t matter what. Fortunately, I had good high quality physique armor, gloves, boots, and helmet, all of which had been examined and held up, even to the purpose when the bones beneath them gave means.

My denouement arrived after I got here face-to-face with a downhill flume that gave the impression to be made completely of bowling balls. Partway down the slope, my entrance tire obtained caught between two boulders, leaving me holding every part upright on tippy toes on a 3rd boulder, with the clutch pulled in and about 75 extra yards of steep bowling balls to go.

Properly, I did my half, was my final thought as I kicked the entrance tire free. Gravity and the KTM took me up over a boulder and down into the bowling alley. I hit an enormous rock head-on, bounced backward, and rolled over it. Then one other and one other, like bumper vehicles on a slope, bouncing and hitting and banging my means downhill.

After a protracted day of nothing however rocks, it was nightfall earlier than I made it to camp. After I obtained there, the tent was arrange however nothing else: no meals on the barbecue, no chilly beer, no smiling face to greet me. Nathen was curled up in his sleeping bag, unconscious. I used to be pissed off however figured he should have altitude illness, so it was an MRE for dinner and an early campfire alone.

The following morning was freezing chilly, and for the primary time, I used to be not excited to greet the TAT. We have been within the Uinta Mountains, in Utah’s panhandle east of Salt Lake Metropolis, amongst 10,000-feet-plus Bald Mountain and Hayden Peak, surrounded by alpine lakes. It was a few of the most spectacular surroundings I’ve seen wherever on this planet, the air perfumed by pine. I largely do not forget that a part of the journey like a dream.

The path moved previous towering ridges and undulating excessive prairie as I crisscrossed between the borders of Utah and Wyoming, finally popping right down to Bear Lake, the place Nathen had already ready camp. We stayed there for 2 days to recharge, sleeping many of the second day. 

Cousins to the Rescue

As luck would have it, the BDR of us blazed a connecting path from Utah to its Idaho route that completely synched me again up with Correro’s TransAmerica Path. At Balancing Rock, I left the TAT to observe the unique Oregon Path. One of many highlights of my cross-country journey was tracing the wagon-wheel ruts of America’s pioneers. I navigated my very own filth path to Three Island State Park – a serious impediment for coated wagons in these occasions – the place I picked up Idaho’s state-run Fundamental Oregon Path Backcountry Byway, a 100-mile filth route that ends at Bonneville Level.

Nathen and I headed southwest to Melba, Idaho, the place my cousins Calvin and Corrina stay. We confronted double jeopardy: Nathen, who had been listless for days, couldn’t get off the bed, and we had mechanical points with the Jeep. We took Nathen to pressing care, the place he was identified with Lyme illness, often contracted by a tick chew. I felt unhealthy that I had pushed and prodded him to maintain shifting; I assumed he was simply malingering. Nathen flew house to Philly, and I left the Jeep with a mechanic and my trailer with Calvin and Corrina and reconfigured the KTM so I might end the TAT how I began a yr in the past: solo and unassisted.

By way of Fireplace and Brimstone to the Sea

The Pacific Ocean Spur of Correro’s TAT skirts the desolate Nice Basin, which fearful me due to my restricted gasoline vary. A full day’s using took me the farthest I had gone with out refueling since leaving Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. When my engine began to sputter dry, I found that my gas bladder was empty after a part of it melted on the KTM’s exhaust pipe – fortuitously it hadn’t ignited! Fortunately, I used to be already on blacktop coming down from the mountains, so I pulled within the clutch and coasted right into a gasoline station within the little frontier city of Canyon Metropolis, Oregon.

With the desert behind me and milder mountains forward, I confronted an impediment that nearly ended my trip. The Satan’s Knob Advanced Fireplace was raging uncontrolled and spreading, and the TAT ran proper by the center of it. I spent the evening in a motel close to the fireplace zone and plotted a route farther south towards Crater Lake. Nonetheless, the fireplace shifted in a single day, and I ended up needing a park ranger escort by a just lately burned space. It was sobering to see the melted roadway and burned-up husks of what was a forest. The air smelled like charcoal.

The remainder of the day was one frustration after one other as I navigated my means across the fireplace. After I obtained again on pavement, it was darkish, and I used to be virtually out of gasoline. I hit a number of miles of Interstate 5, the primary freeway I had been on since I began the journey. The expertise was surreal. I noticed extra individuals than I had in days, sharing three lanes with all kinds of automobiles, the wind from passing semis buffeting my laden dirtbike.

I spent my final evening of the TAT on the Wolf Creek Inn. In-built 1883, it’s the oldest repeatedly operated resort within the Pacific Northwest – and seemingly some of the haunted locations in Oregon. Arising early the subsequent morning, I used to be filled with power, able to embark on the ultimate leg of my trip-of-a-lifetime, the fruits of a two-year journey that began on the sting of the Atlantic Ocean.

A Nice Final Day on the TransAmerica Path

It was a stupendous day amidst magnificent surroundings, and I needed to savor each minute of each mile. I took a bit of nation highway tour to Golden, a well-preserved ghost city, and farther alongside, after the highway turned to filth, I hoped to blaze a path right down to the TAT. What appeared like a good suggestion turned out to be a self-inflicted ordeal, and I ended up bushwhacking and practically succumbing to a hostile blackberry bush.

It was virtually midday after I obtained my final tank of gasoline. All through the complete journey, I had gotten just one flat tire, again in Tennessee. The expertise had price me a whole day, so after I had new tires mounted in Colorado, I had the store set up a bib mousse within the entrance tire as an alternative of a tube. That puncture-proof doughnut of froth most likely prevented a number of flats after I was bouncing from rock to rock like a pinball in Utah. Nonetheless, on the finish of the path, it went from being merely squishy to downright flat with about 60 extra miles to go.

I nonetheless wanted to traverse the coastal Siskiyou Vary, and the path zigzagged from the treeline right down to the Rogue River, then again up and down once more, repeatedly. Due to the flat entrance tire, I stored my velocity round 20 mph and took a whole lot of turns as sq. as potential.

Nonetheless, it was a terrific day. The countryside was like a best hits album of the entire TAT. Alongside the Rogue River, the thick deciduous bushes jogged my memory of Appalachia. Climbing into the mountains, the pines, chapparal, and vistas have been emblematic of the West. In between have been dank, moss-covered redwoods that heralded the Pacific. And I noticed extra wildlife than on another stretch of the entire journey: elk, deer, a bear cub, a beaver, and an eagle.

On the price I used to be going, it was going to be a stretch to make it to the coast earlier than darkish. However someplace up within the mountains when the highway forked, there was an indication within the course I used to be going that mentioned “COAST.” That recharged me, but it surely was hours later earlier than I lastly rounded a tree-lined nook and came across U.S. Route 101. I used to be met with a chilly blast of wind and the open ocean. Identical to that the GPS route ended, and the TransAmerica Path was over.

It was a number of miles south on 101 to Port Orford, essentially the most westerly city within the decrease 48 states. I hugged the shoulder to trip sluggish sufficient to maintain my tire collectively and never get run over. Orford is a fishing entrepot uncovered to the tough sea. I discovered entry right down to the seashore for the ritual dunking of my entrance wheel within the Pacific, as I had accomplished within the Atlantic after I began my journey greater than a yr in the past.

The wind was robust, the sand was gentle, and the tide was coming in rapidly. It was all I might do to take off my gloves for a selfie and hold my bike upright. A couple of foot and a half of water rushed over me, soaking my boots and burying my rims. It was tough to get out of there, and with that flat entrance tire, I barely made it again up the eroded slippery cliff to the principle highway.

I rode again to a dock the place there was a bit of shack that appeared like a bar. The cranes have been hauling up the final boats of the day as I pulled as much as the fisherman’s tavern, leaned my bike towards a publish, and shut off the engine. That’s when the enormity of the entire thing washed over me.

Stuffing my gloves in my helmet, I pushed open the door, and yelled out the good factor ever emitted from my lips: “Hey all people! I simply rode throughout America on a dirtbike!”

I ordered a mug of beer, a dozen oysters, and a flounder sandwich. After a second beer, after I requested for the examine, I used to be instructed that one of many different patrons had coated my tab. Later, I used to be the one visitor in a bit of redwoods lodge, the place I watched the sundown from a scorching tub, with a bottle of champagne at my aspect.

Hearken to Dave Scott’s unfiltered story of his total TAT journey in Episodes 46, 48, and 50 of the Rider Journal Insider Podcast.