With the demise of Photobucket it was time to create a new thread, this will mainly be trip reports and pictures, but there will also be some tech and photos of current projects. I would like to thank @Black798 for archiving my old build thread, after six years and 140 pages I simply did not have the time or patience to go back and replace every single picture. While a project is never done, I feel that I’m at the point where I’m just tweaking stuff and as a whole the 4Runner is pretty close to being “done”. Think of this as a continuation of my build thread but a little more laid back, and more focus on fun than tech.

You can’t start a thread like this without an Adventure, so I made one! Last year I mapped out a route through the middle of Colorado, the goal was to cover as much ground as possible while keeping pavement to a bare minimum. Here is the trip report from last year: 2016 CO Expo Trip Report

It was so much fun that we planned out another trip, this time it was Northern Colorado into Wyoming. We started at the same place as last year, but instead of heading south we went north. The goal was to cover roughly 300 miles of terrain in three days, almost all of that dirt. We got an early start Friday morning, after airing down and catching up we hit the trail. Unfortunately covering this many miles in day means you can’t stop for pictures every ten minutes, so we took in the sights behind the wheel, while still stopping on a regular basis to joke around and take some pictures.

Mid-way through day one taking a break. Myself in front, followed by Kyle ( @EatonKyleH ) in his LT 3rd Gen 4Runner, Rick ( @Mr.Rick ) in his 5th Gen 4Runner, and Aaron ( @Volcom ) in his newly acquired Sequoia.



The terrain varied a lot on that first day; we went from wooded trails to ranch land, desert terrain to high mountain meadows, and everything between.



The destination for the day was Rabbit Ears Peak, close to Steamboat Springs. We arrived at a reasonable time, claimed a camp spot lower down the mountain, and proceeded up the trail to the peak. While it’s not a hard trail it is rocky and steep, especially for a stock vehicle. But, I’ve been to this spot before and the views are spectacular!



The trail literally ends at one of the “Rabbit Ears” and there’s not much room to turn around. We noticed a small fire pit off to the side of the trail and decided this was camp for the night! But it wasn’t going to be easy, nothing was level and it was super tight, but it’s an adventure right?! Aaron and I were sleeping in our rigs, and Kyle and Rick had roof top tents. We had to maneuver our rigs around, along with stacking firewood, rocks and some previously cut logs in the area to “level” our rigs. But in the end it was worth the work and we were greeted to an amazing evening above the stars (and everyone else in the surrounding area).

When it was all said and done we covered 92.3 miles, with about 2.5 of that being pavement!