Post your off-road pics.

[Stangman570]

I bet that was a seriously butt puckering moment. How did you get out of that??

Ohhh for sure it was. I had my son come around on the opposite side and I connected a chain to the passenger front hook and pulled it at an angle to get it off the embankment. I could have pulled out under power. I was unsure at the time if I would have crushed the drivers side had I done so. Popped it in neutral and my other son and I stood on the passenger side step rail and bounced it down until the front tire made contact. I got really lucky with this one.

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[Glocker]

Ohhh for sure it was. I had my son come around on the opposite side and I connected a chain to the passenger front hook and pulled it at an angle to get it off the embankment. I could have pulled out under power. I was unsure at the time if I would have crushed the drivers side had I done so. Popped it in neutral and my other son and I stood on the passenger side step rail and bounced it down until the front tire made contact. I got really lucky with this one.

Good job saving her!

 

[Toast.]

we have a stock fx4 ranger, stock tires. we ran our tires at 28 psi and went carefully. imogene was straightforward, in the telluride>ouray direction. i got out of the car a couple times to look at stuff but never had my wife spotting etc. of the two, imogene in my opinion is the money shot because it is longer, bigger expanses, more varied terrain. but black bear is clearly more difficult and if you want bragging points with the jeep crowd probably the way to go. imogene, felt more fun, and that may be because it is easier and perhaps better suited to a stock truck, or perhaps because compared to black bear it seemed so straightforward. the downside of imogene was that it was way way busier, and had two way traffic which meant we did a lot of weird off camber pull offs and backing up to let people by.

doing what we did, black bear > imogene > ophir pass in a big circle was a really nice link up and we were camping along the way.

black bear was way more difficult. technical spots and steep drops. im sure i got out of the car a dozen times to check things out, skipped two of the more technical drops in the area i suspect is called the steps (there are established bypasses for several of the really gnarly obstacles), and i definitely whacked the skid plates multiple times on black bear. halfway through the difficult stuff it was not obvious to me we were going to get through without damage. i kept thinking "well this is going well, but if it gets a lot harder..."

i had my wife spot two drops on black bear- for when i wanted to place the passenger wheel in an exact way. it was certainly the most stimulating road we've been on though and the combination of steep drop offs to the side and technical terrain in a stock car with little clearance margin made us feel like we'd definitely earned our keep when we rolled into telluride. no damage that matters though- just skid hits.

the size of the truck, the handling, etc felt fine. there was one spot where i definitely wish i had more articulation, and lifted wheels off the ground a few times. i also now have more respect for why people like rock sliders.

doing some of the tricky descent obstacles while looking down into the valley on a 60% grade to drivers side, or doing some gnarly off camber driving to pick a line that worked with our truck was occasionally frankly butt puckering. we also had to do some three point turns to make the tighter hairpin turns, but so did the jeeps when we could see them.

for what its worth though, we are not experienced offroad folks. we've only done a handful of trails that are really technical or require significant crawling.

in terms of the social experience, we were doing about the same pace as the jeeps, which makes me feel like we weren't obviously out of place. perhaps they were all first timers too. we passed a couple jeeps, were passed by one jeep. we saw two tacomas on the road same day (of probably fifteen jeeps or more) and no other vehicles other than some dirt bikes on the first/easy half. both tacomas had what appeared to be relatively moderate mods. we definitely were the only folks running 31" tires that i could see. the tacomas were all stopped at a view point together and were running 33" tires.

anyways it was super fun and we would do it again, but i'd ask someone who has more experience than us for an opinion as well

Great info, thanks for taking the time to share. And great news to hear the truck handled each.

Only thing I've changed out is adding the bigger BFG KO2s, otherwise I'm running the stock FX4 crew cab. I knew it could handle Ophir (did that in my ex's jeep a couple years back), but I really want to do Imogene next summer, so this is great to hear. I'm in no hurry to do Black Bear, but it's good to hear that the truck can do it...so maybe down the road. I had watched Jeep videos doing those two passes on Youtube and thought I'd be fine, but it's great to get some first hand info!

Ouray is probably my favorite Colorado town, so with this info, next summer I'll definitely be doing a trip from Ouray > Telluride using Imogene, then take Ophir back over to Silverton.

 

[charwest]

Great info, thanks for taking the time to share. And great news to hear the truck handled each.

Only thing I've changed out is adding the bigger BFG KO2s, otherwise I'm running the stock FX4 crew cab. I knew it could handle Ophir (did that in my ex's jeep a couple years back), but I really want to do Imogene next summer, so this is great to hear. I'm in no hurry to do Black Bear, but it's good to hear that the truck can do it...so maybe down the road. I had watched Jeep videos doing those two passes on Youtube and thought I'd be fine, but it's great to get some first hand info!

Ouray is probably my favorite Colorado town, so with this info, next summer I'll definitely be doing a trip from Ouray > Telluride using Imogene, then take Ophir back over to Silverton.

that will be fun. post photos

if folks are reading this and wondering where they stand, i think it would be reasonable to proceed from ophir > imogene > black bear. if ophir gives you even a moment of pause, you will feel taxed on imogene but you will be fine. if imogene makes you even slightly uncomfortable, you will be very uncomfortable on black bear.

 

[Toast.]

that will be fun. post photos

if folks are reading this and wondering where they stand, i think it would be reasonable to proceed from ophir > imogene > black bear. if ophir gives you even a moment of pause, you will feel taxed on imogene but you will be fine. if imogene makes you even slightly uncomfortable, you will be very uncomfortable on black bear.

Will definitely post pics. Going to Moab this coming weekend, so maybe some pics from that if we do anything cool.

And yeah that makes sense. Ophir really didn't have anything challenging, except for that steep drop off that stretch of shale rock. Feel comfortable starting with Imogene (especially since I'll have a better handle on my truck by next June or so).

 

[l0rdv8r]

This is the most my 4x2 has gone off-road to date lol...

 

[Andy]

Went out on a pretty spicy trail. Guy in a wrangler sport was stuck on these stair steps so we had to trail build to get him out.

Had to park on the side of a rather steep section to get him past us. Wife was a bit uncomfortable sitting at a 28* angle on a rocky slope. Hah.

 

[charwest]

Went out on a pretty spicy trail. Guy in a wrangler sport was stuck on these stair steps so we had to trail build to get him out.

Had to park on the side of a rather steep section to get him past us. Wife was a bit uncomfortable sitting at a 28* angle on a rocky slope. Hah.

im curious what your experience with the offroad info display is-

my suspicion is that it takes a little while to refresh, or it averages over a certain time interval. it seems that it never shows the pitch or camber that is quite as extreme as i suspect, but then i am rarely at those angles for more than a few moments. i wondered if you park/stay at those angles that is when it is actually a representative read.

or maybe it registers instantaneously, but i never look at the dials at the right time because i am trying not to roll the truck..

 

[Andy]

im curious what your experience with the offroad info display is-

my suspicion is that it takes a little while to refresh, or it averages over a certain time interval. it seems that it never shows the pitch or camber that is quite as extreme as i suspect, but then i am rarely at those angles for more than a few moments. i wondered if you park/stay at those angles that is when it is actually a representative read.

or maybe it registers instantaneously, but i never look at the dials at the right time because i am trying not to roll the truck..

Anytime I’m off road it responds within seconds of the change. I’m not sure if it’s speed based and if you are going faster it will average differently than going slowly. As I backed up that slope it changed while I was moving. No real delay.

I use the gauge to level the truck when setting up camp and it’s accurate enough to make setting up camp really easy. It’s never off more than 1 degree.

 

[DocE3Gun]

3 days of driving around Reveille Peak Ranch while hauling a bed full of guns, ammo, and gear.
Not as “off-road” as many have shown here, but the trail roads between stages definitely made the new tires and suspension shine.

 

[doug910]

im curious what your experience with the offroad info display is-

my suspicion is that it takes a little while to refresh, or it averages over a certain time interval. it seems that it never shows the pitch or camber that is quite as extreme as i suspect, but then i am rarely at those angles for more than a few moments. i wondered if you park/stay at those angles that is when it is actually a representative read.

or maybe it registers instantaneously, but i never look at the dials at the right time because i am trying not to roll the truck..

One thing to add too, the angle of the slope is way less than it ever "feels" like. If you draw an angle of 30 degrees on a piece of a paper, it looks pretty small, but if you sit on a 30 degree surface, it feels like you're looking straight down. The most you'll ever see on a typical paved road is a few degrees so that might be way the gauge feels inaccurate/pointless.

 

[dannewps]

Had some fun with the Westin Automotive crew out in Johnson Valley. Left to right, me, Tacoma, Jeep, 4Runner. (Click to expand)

 

[RVA Overland]

exact

Anytime I’m off road it responds within seconds of the change. I’m not sure if it’s speed based and if you are going faster it will average differently than going slowly. As I backed up that slope it changed while I was moving. No real delay.

I use the gauge to level the truck when setting up camp and it’s accurate enough to make setting up camp really easy. It’s never off more than 1 degree.

I use my offroad display for tent setup also. It is perfect for that, don't even need to get out of the truck to make sure I am good. I have always felt the display changed quickly with little to no delay. It is often hard to look when things get interesting and agree it never feels the same as it looks. Like watching video of trails make them look easy and low angle but in reality they are scary.

 

[Fasd1421]

I think we crossed paths at Canyonlands!

Here are my Moab pics, did Gemini Bridges back from Canyonlands to Arches.

Took a bunch of other pics, but these are by far the prettiest.

I was thinking you would probably be on here! We had done Gemini Bridges the day before after doing Fins and Things. After we finished Canyonlands we did the Fallen Peace Officer Trail off of 191. The next day we went to Bryce Canyon and then Zion the day following.

 

[Fasd1421]

I think we crossed paths at Canyonlands!

Here are my Moab pics, did Gemini Bridges back from Canyonlands to Arches.

Took a bunch of other pics, but these are by far the prettiest.

Here are some photos from Fins and Things.

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