TAT West Tennessee Section

Getting ready to do the west half of the TAT in Tennessee in a few weeks. New KO2’s are on. BA highline is on order, should be here next week. Smittybuilt 10k# winch is in stock. Just gotta get it all put together. I had planned on doing all of this a little at a time over the next year but since we’re doing the Trail in March, figured I’d better get it all installed before we go just in case. I bought Sams .gpx file so I’m ready there. Can’t wait to hit the road. Check back for updates along the way.

 

Good day. I plan on doing the TAT from Western NC to Monteagle TN later this year. Just got my 22 TRDOR on 12/27.

 

Getting close. Should have bumper & winch installed this weekend. I’ve been working on a little camping trailer project but it won’t be ready for this trip.

 

Starting to put gear together for the trip. I ordered a gopro, tried it out today. It didn't work. Having to send it back. I asked if they'd overnight me a new one they said no, it takes 5-7 days to ship new one. SO.... I guess I won't be getting as much footage of the TAT. But I'll still try to make what I can with my phone.

 

On my list of "Someday". Shooting for 4 years from now. Need to retire first.

 

I'd like to do the entire TAT on a dual sport motorcycle at some point. Looking forward to seeing some pics of your trip.

 

I have a friend that also wants to do this on a motorcycle. I am trying to convince him to team up. Me in truck and him on his bike. I can carry gear and food. Maybe even switch off from time to time.

 

I've done a similar version of this in Colorado and Utah. A friend and I both took dual sports cross country in the back of my pick up truck. Generally, we parked / camped and rode. Sometimes he'd ride his bike as I followed on trips from A to B in the truck with my bike and all our gear. What seems to always happen is the bike makes ground much faster than a truck. Your friend would have to be cool with waiting for you to catch up, a lot.

 

I'll have the food in my truck.... they wont go far.
But yes. You are right. Good to plan spots to catch back up at.

 

Packed up. Will be heading out later today to head north. Meeting the rest of the guys tomorrow morning to hit the trail near Corinth Ms.

 

Safe travels and post pics!!!

 

Well. The water was HIGH in the low spots. We had to backtrack and go around several times. Once we just said screw it and crossed. Probably shouldn’t have. Lol. Videos to come shortly of the water crossings. We didn’t make it far today. Because of the back tracking.

 

The west portion from Corinth Ms, to Savannah Tn is mostly farm land. And more water crossings Than we expected. We had to double back and find alternate routes several times, water was just too deep. We crossed one of the deep ones anyway even though we probably shouldnt have. One 4Runner in the group got a small amount of water In The bottom of his air box. And the other had a little in his floorboard. The Tacoma stayed dry though thankfully. Then from savannah to collinwood there’s soMe really pretty creeks and small rivers but we’d already wasted too much time back tracking to get around the flooded portions earlier that we didn’t have time to stop. It also cut our trip short by a few sections. We had planned to make it as far as Fayetteville, Tn. But didn’t make it much past Collinwood. Leaving collinwood we split up. The others went on to their camp site for the night and the wife and I tried to continue on to the HWY 43 crossing. However right outside of collinwood there was a gate closed on the trail, and the bypass had a bridge out, allllll the way at the opposite end. Another backtrack. I marked both the shut gate and bridge out as public on the GAIA app so if you have it you should see it. It was getting late and I was tired and we had planned to head home Sunday morning anyway, so we just hit the pavement back to Florence, Al. We will definitely be coming back to ride the section from here to Chattanooga one weekend. I’m putting the videos of the water crossings on YouTube but until then they are all on my IG account if you want to see them there under Reels. @P425Adventures

 

https://youtu.be/a4Qw8kXOPFM

 

Is all this water a normal winter/spring runoff? Seems like a lot. I'm from a dry part of the world and not used to seeing that amount of water.

 

I think some water in low spots may be normal but right now the majority of it is due to rain/river levels. Pickwick is the last in the line and all of the water from wheeler dumps into Wilson, and all that water dumps in to pickwick. So the pickwick area is always the highest. The river rises and the water in all of these creeks rise and spill out into low places.

 

Yeah, that was a lot of water... Just adds to the adventure. lol