MISSION: Continental Divide Trail (CDT)

OBJECTIVES:

1. Complete the CDT
2. Execute a multi-week trip
3. Pictures along the trail (Testing out lack of DSLR camera knowledge)
4. Scenic views
5. Blog everyday to document the trip
6. Explore 23 National Forests and 2 National Parks
7. Evaluate what is useful and not & refine rig

OVERVIEW:

For those of you who are not aware of my situation, I am being medically retired from the Air Force after having to have a spinal fusion surgery. I happen to have a lot of leave built up and a remarkably low number of family commitments in the next few weeks. I have always wanted to take a BIG overlanding trip but have never had the time to do it and, WELL HERE WE ARE! I always planned on doing the Trans-America Trail but after watching the guys from Trailspin TV take on the TAT, I realized that I could better use my time by exploring a region that was going to be a shorter trip and interesting the whole way. It was reported that the beginning of the TAT was pretty boring and I have traveled a lot of those East Coast roads already so I decided to take on the Continental Divide Trail.

I started planning by finding a plan someone on overland bound had roughly thrown together and then I downloaded a kmz file for the actual continental divide and started refining the plan to most closely follow the it. I am a huge proponent for the use of National Forests and luckily for me, a lot of this trail is in and around Natl Forests so I have fairly reliable maps to use for planning. I did find a few places where the Forrest map shows a gate but the satellite imagery appears to show no gate and well-used trail. I have planned around these places but there is only one way to find out for good.

I have taken a lot of little trips to refine my rig and setup over the last year or so and I feel like my skills and rig are ready for this kind of trip. However, I am a novice at traveling these parts of the country and this type of terrain so I’ll just be ready to execute some good judgement and turn around when I have to.

The point here is to finally take a trip that I have been planning for a long time. Recent career changes have afforded me the time off to take this trip so that is the plan. Along the way I plan on working on my photography skills while blogging the trip to document what I see. I have been pretty busy getting out of the military and planning this trip so the content has been lacking throughout all social media platforms and I plan to make up for the lack of content. I really plan on focusing on that so make sure you are checking Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the site for updates as I find enough service to do so.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me get to this point and I’ll see you on the trail. Follow me through the blog and all social media platforms!

Keep checking back for updates!