American Discovery Trail - Across Nebraska

[Dave]

Whew! I've been in Nebraska for a while! I'm in Gering tonight, next to Scotts Bluff National Monument, and tomorrow I'll finally cross into Wyoming. I also, I should note, left the American Discovery Trail a few days ago, back around Paxton. From here onward, I'm following the Oregon Trail (more or less) home to Portland, and then onto the Pacific.



I can't exactly recommend Nebraska for people looking for a Camino-style walk. Unlike Iowa, there are very, very few dedicated walking/biking tracks along the ADT in Nebraska. (For a good alternative, check out the Cowboy Trail in northern Nebraska.) The exception worth considering is between Omaha and Lincoln, which loops around a couple of nice lakes and then follows the MoPac Trail all the way to Lincoln. I have really enjoyed parts of the last section in Western Nebraska, especially looping around McConaughy Lake--some real, genuine, actual hills out here!--but I'm ready for Wyoming.

Here are my daily write-ups of my walks in Nebraska:

• Day 36 – Omaha to Wehrspann Lake, NE – 16 miles
• Day 37 – Wehrspann Lake to Eagle, NE – 35 miles
• Day 38 – Eagle to Lincoln, NE – 14 miles
• Day 39 – Lincoln, NE – 8 miles
• Days 40 & 41 – Lincoln to Stromsburg, NE – 67 miles
• Day 42 – Stromsburg to Central City, NE – 24 miles
• Days 43 & 44 – Central City to Kearney, NE – 82 miles
• Days 45 & 46 – Kearney to Cozad, NE – 67 miles
• Days 47 & 48 – Cozad to North Platte, NE – 48.5 miles
• Day 49 – North Platte to Paxton, NE – 33 miles
• Day 50 – Paxton to Spring Creek Campground, NE – 34 miles
• Days 51-53 – Spring Creek Campground to Bridgeport, NE – 77 miles
• Day 54 – Bridgeport to Gering, NE – 34 miles

This will be my last ADT post for a bit, since I'm on the Oregon Trail for the remainder of this walk (just 1444 miles to go!). If you want to keep following along, see my home page and Instagram. A complete index of all my ADT posts can be found here.

 

[Jarrad]

Oregon Trail? Watch out for that dysentery. And remember that you can't just caulk the wagon and float it. Sorry -- too many video games as a youth.

 

[GPeachy]

Expat from the PNW here (Seattle, 27 years). I've been perusing your blog. If you do decide to do the mega-tour of Italy at any time and find yourself near Foligno (17 km from Assisi), send me a message. You have been to some of the same towns my husband and I visited when we did a cross-country bike tour in 1998.