[Ep 2 of 2] Trans America Trail Tips and Insight. Rockies to Oregon with Lockhart Basin, UT

Hey everyone, thanks again for joining my channel and watching my videos. This is the second part of a two-part episode covering my Transamerica Trail from Virginia to the Oregon coast. In episode one, if you've watched that already or if you haven't, I recommend watching that before this one. I cover Virginia to the Rockies and in this one we're going to cover the Rockies right through to the Oregon coast. Once again, I'll include commentary, observations and some advice that might help you in your TAP planning. You'll get to see the trail, some of the things you might encounter. Lockhart Basin in Utah was a real challenge and included an injury and a potential life-threatening event. I'll talk about that in this video and we'll complete the trip to the Oregon coast. Thanks for joining again and we'll see you out there. Short recap here at the conclusion of episode one of the TAT Ride Report. We were headed up Marshall Pass. We cleared the top of the pass, down the other side, a great breakfast in Sargent's Colorado, then some pavement and on to Lake City, Colorado. Lake City, Colorado is the entryway to the High Rockies. Engineer Pass starts right out of the town, right up this street. There's eclectic little buildings and shops you can visit, good places to eat, good places to camp commercially or bed and breakfast available there. We stayed in a small campsite that was not even marked on the right hand side, just out of town on Engineer Pass's very beginning. You can look for that if you want to camp starting up Engineer Pass. Up the pass right out of Lake City, the road is quite easy, side by sides occasionally. Then up ahead we can see the patches of snow and we know we're getting into the high elevations and the heart of the Rockies. Partially up the pass you come to the remains and old buildings of mining operations. We really didn't take the time to explore them, but you could certainly put that on your list of things to do. It's lots of interesting artifacts left around and old buildings that you could do some exploring. The morning was still pretty young when we found ourselves at the top of Engineer Pass. The weather was holding out well. The views were good and it was wonderful to take a moment and celebrate our accomplishment. Virginia to the top of Engineer Pass. The western side of Engineer Pass is a little more challenging than coming up from the east, but still not bad. The views were absolutely stupendous and it was a little hard to pay attention to the road in front of you for the want of looking out over the vistas that were afforded you. Just very awe-inspiring and you wanted to take it all in, but safety first. If you really want to take some pictures, stop. Take a break anyway. It's all encompassing of your attention to safely ride these passes. There are a number of passes and you could spend a week in this area alone riding them. The Alpine Loop in particular. We were running short on time, so we chose to keep heading west. Enough in the day that the typical monsoon storms that build up in mid-summer across the Rockies had not yet occurred, but you can tell from these sharp switchbacks that if it were to catch you in a pouring rain up there that it would be a lot more challenging. This spot right here is where Engineer Pass splits off and if we had gone to the left there it would have been part of the famous Alpine Loop. You can look that up as to what that includes, but we took the right-hand side which was taking us down a quite challenging pathway to the little town of Voo Ray. All this destruction you see with the crushed timber is the results of landslides during the winter. There's no doubt that you want to pay attention on trails such as this. This is not Black Bear Pass, but it could be just as deadly with one wrong turn. This is always steeper than the video makes it appear to be. There was loose stones, but mostly large embedded rocks and some ledges that I came to such as right here where I needed to get my breath. That's an important reminder that if you don't have time to acclimate to 12,000 and 11,000 foot elevations you become fatigued much faster and make mistakes. I dropped the bike when I was within sight of the pavement, but tweaked my knee a bit. We made it into Voo Ray and the monsoon season caught up with us. Out of Voo Ray there were several hours of riding in cold pouring rain and we arrived in Dove Creek western part of Colorado. We got a hotel and for us. No flat tires, no real mechanical issues, and now we're on the beautiful high mountainous area leading into Monticello and after that we'll descend into the extremely hot desert and red rock sections of Lockhart Basin leading to Moab. Lockhart Basin, to let you know, is not part of the TAT. We saw it as a shortcut into Moab and it looks like it is on the map. Actually it is an expert section of the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route and it's about 70 miles of extremely rugged, extremely hot, extremely demanding trail with no way out except to turn around and go back or keep going ahead. If you damage your bike, if you injure yourself, it could be an emergency situation and I got into just that. Prior to reaching there though there's newspaper rock in this beautiful little canyon here and actually a little sprinkle of rain and that was the last of the moisture I was going to see. Here I'm leaving the pavement and entering Lockhart Basin on a beguilingly smooth and wide road. Stunning views already of the red rock formations lead you to think you're on for a beautiful ride but things get tough very shortly. It's about one o'clock in the afternoon at this point and things are going wonderfully. Lockhart Basin Trail is very popular and it's safe to do if you're an intermediate rider, if you're on a proper bike and you have plenty of water and friends with you to help you in case of an emergency. We had water but we had heavily laden bikes and we really didn't know what we were getting into. There are some great videos on YouTube that show more of this trail. We were encountering such difficulties and concentrating so much I did very little filming but people do get into trouble. People ride this trail well. Temperatures rose. The trail became much more difficult and fatigue and heat took its toll to the point where I made a serious mistake coming over a rise, blipped the throttle and went over a 14 foot drop to the bottom of a hard pan canyon below. The bike sustained some damage but my right foot took a tremendous impact and probably broke some bones. Hours and hours of struggle remained ahead of us. Dehydration was severe. We needed to get to water and we couldn't risk the sun coming up on us again. Broken shift levers, dead batteries. We rode through the dark in terrain like this arriving into Moab at 3 a.m. So this was an important lesson. Know what is up ahead. Know what you're getting yourself into. Make sure you're prepared for it and you can handle it. We did but it wasn't pretty. Several days were spent in Moab recovering and repairing items on the bike. My foot was swollen but it could fit into the boot. Bill was not ready to move on yet but I was and I felt I needed to find out if I could complete the tat or not. So off I went on my own. Ah the venerable Suzuki DR650. What a bike. Took such a pounding and here it is scarred and damaged that's still carrying me on. I like the simple bikes. I like the complicated bikes. They're all good. Just find one that you love and ride the tat. I pounded out some miles on my own that day and found a spot to camp on BLM land with just me and some cows moving around. The foot was definitely hurting and I was limping. It actually felt better when it was stuffed into my riding boot. I just threw a tarp on the ground, threw my sleeping bag out on it and slept under the stars to the howl of coyotes. Up and out the next morning. Another beautiful day riding into the remote areas of Idaho. Seldom seen by the public zipping by on the interstate. I determined that come hell or high water I was going to finish the tat and take care of the foot afterwards. I also made contact with the group that was riding well ahead of us and they were camped at a spot well up into the Idaho-Oregon border area and I determined that I was going to catch up with them and complete the tat with those partners and that's what I did. Camping with them on the Snake River and heading into Oregon the next day. The roads up and out of Idaho into Oregon were not challenging but they were flowing and beautiful through the forest. A real pleasure to be with these guys and have the encouragement that my foot was going to survive and get me all the way through the Oregon coast. Let me see if I can just give you a real quick rundown of the gear that I utilized. For cooking I had a very tiny stove that screws into a butane canister that you can get at any Walmart. I only used it for heating water and making dehydrated foods. My helmet is an Arai XD. Absolutely love it and I use it every ride even to this day. Would definitely get another one of those. My sleeping bag was a down bag. I love it also and I still use it. It folds completely open and can be used as a quilt or as a sleeping bag. A blow-up air pillow worked just fine. A pair of very lightweight shoes to slip on at camp are imperative so you're comfortable once you're in camp. Get those boots off. If it's hot and you're really exhausted, add electrolytes to your water. Stay hydrated. Check your bike over when you come to a stop. Here I found loose exhaust bolts and was able to tighten them up before they fell out. Eastern Oregon is hot. Even in the high country it can still be quite warm. This is the campsite in John Day, Oregon. You can plan on an oasis there for gas and a place to spend the night. But overall it's going to be hot. Still beautiful flowing forest service roads. My riding pants are the Klim Mojaves and they float air quite well. For boots I had the Corazol Alpine Stars Corazoles. They're quite protective but when a bike falls 14 feet and slams onto the side of it you definitely need something very protective. Make sure you've got good boots. So can you ride the Transamerican Trail solo? Of course you can and people certainly do. Riding with a group has its advantages. Just make sure everyone understands the rules of the road and that you're compatible. Companions with you can be a great benefit. I can certainly attest to that. A great campsite was found right along the Crooked River. The icy chilly water was a great place to take a bath, soak my aching foot, and just relax and refresh yourselves after a hot day riding. Out the next morning we start heading for the Cascade Mountains and we know cooler environments are ahead of us and the coast isn't very far away. But meanwhile we still have some dusty hot riding to do. But we're up for it. What a beautiful time to be with a group of guys like this and on a ride like this. Memories of a lifetime. I hope you get a chance to do it. I may do it again. We made camp for what we thought was going to be our last night camping before reaching the coast. But out the next day we chose some routing that took us into an obstacle that delayed us and allowed us to have another night camping out. This routing was on GPS Kevin's tracks. And it took a lot of team effort to get us through the rock slide and then the downed trees. This route is now completely blocked and impassable. Removal of the side pannier was imperative just to squeak a bike by. The sheer drop to the right went down for hundreds and hundreds of yards if not thousands of feet. I can't tell you the exact location of this but to be safe use Sam Carrero's Pacific Spur routing through the Cascades and you will not encounter this spot where people still come to it and have to turn around. Not far from the rock slide we came to an extended area of downed trees. Some of them we had to cut through. It's a good idea to carry a quality folding saw with you. Fortunately most of them we could get our bikes through and around without having to cut them. Inevitably the trip is drawing to a close and we gather around our morning campfire for our last breakfast and breaking of camp heading to the coast. What a great group of guys. What a fun time but we're almost at the end of our journey. Just a few hours of riding on narrow paved roads through the beautiful green Cascade Mountains. We arrive in Port Orford at the end of the Transamerica Trail. Hope you've enjoyed this video. I look forward to sharing more rides with you and I'll see you out there. Have questions and want to leave comments? Just leave them below. You know the drill.