When I started building my truck over eight years ago I had one clear objective in my mind. To take this thing on one of the hardest off road routes in North America to test its full capabilities. I’m certainly not the first one on here to drive through this trail. However, with my heavy camping setup it was going to be one hell of a challenge.



The Crew

Outside of the modified Jeep JL Rubicon we had in our group our convoy of 4x4s was pretty undersized. Given everyone on the trail those 3 days were on 38”+ tires and on solid axles. The crew was my 2012 5th gen SR5 on 34.5s and an Eaton rear locker, a 2009 Nissan Pathfinder dual locked on 35s and a 1994 Jeep XJ on 33s open in the front and a lunchbox locker in the rear. Not the typical 4x4s traversing this trail.




What was it like?

I’m a huge fan of technical off-road driving, the problem solving, challenge, and teamwork it's the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning. In most trails you have difficult sections mixed in with easy dirt road cruising. The Rubicon is a whole different beast, 9 miles of it is continuous rock crawling with no real break anywhere.The trail is littered with large rocks and ledges, multiple sections of very tippy off camber sections and holes galore that swallowed our tires and made things tippy for my top heavy setup.




The trail certainly lived up to its reputation and was definitely the hardest off road driving I’ve done in the 25 yrs I’ve been doing it. Yes, there are harder trails out there like Fordyce which I have also been on (the easier part) but for IFS vehicles with smaller tires I think this is pretty much the limit.




What was the damage?

I think one thing is for sure if your setup has a weak point the Rubicon will find and exploit it. Being at a lower height meant that our undercarriages all took a beating which was fine since we all had pretty stout skid plates. My 4runner had zero mechanicals except for a broken valve stem from a rock strike and some rear quarter body panel damage when I slid off a rock face and hit a rock wall (Thanks KO2s :P ).





The Pathfinder had the most significant failures when it snapped a front CV while the front locker was engaged in a rock field. He had a replacement CV but it turned out to be the wrong size and we were forced to create a stub shaft so he could at least limp off the trail in 3WD. Towards the end of the trail his air lockers also failed which meant we had to drag his truck up the last obstacle called Cadillac Hill a steep and treacherous finale for an epic trail.




This brings up the most serious moment of our adventure. Upon entering the bottom portion of Cadillac Hill we came upon a terrible accident that happened a couple of minutes before we were there. A gentleman and his wife were descending down Cadillac Hill and were trying to yield to uphill traffic on the narrow trail. They got too tippy and rolled off the edge of the trail and tumbled off the cliff for about 100 ft before coming to a rest against a large tree. Luckily they had an exterior roll cage on this thing otherwise I dont think they would have survived a fall like that. Unfortunately their dog who was in the cab with them didn’t survive the tumultuous rollover.




A few volunteers used multiple winches to rapel the truck down the mountain face so the body of the dog could be removed and the truck could be put back on the trail. Amazing enough the owner was able to repair the truck on the trail and drive it out the next day. This was just a tragic reminder of how dangerous our hobby can be and I know for at least myself I’ll be using it as a lesson of when and where to take risks.




My Takeaway

In conclusion I’d put this experience as one of my favorite offroad adventures to date. I know there is a whole lot of attention around the whole “Overlanding” thing these days. To me an adventure like this embodies what that is all about: Very challenging trails, problem solving, team work, epic scenery and some danger. None of this gear obsession, cruising dirt roads to find scenic spots for instagram pictures thing that so many are into. I’m looking forward to returning to the Rubicon hopefully this year with my 2004 Jeep TJ and seeing what it’s like driving a vehicle that is a little bit more capable and aligned to this type of trail.

For those curious this is what I brought with me in this trip.




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Nicely Done. I would not have the balls. No rock experience here in the Swamp. Maybe with a designated trail rig and a good group, which it looks like you had one.

Obviously the Mountain trails are unforgiving......ouch. Losing the pup has to hurt big time.

I have seen some traumatizing human injuries on the trail but this one trumps most of them. I'm sure he or she was a good dog and will be missed.

Looks like a blast other than that, Great write-up and thanks for the inspiration.

Thanks for the write up.

I think I will stay with the Alpine Loop in western Colorado, thank you.

Great job! Love seeing 4runners on hard trails.

Agree, this is a great post. For the OP, any plans to fix the body damage or figure it's just a battle scar for an older rig?

That's what probably worries me the most with getting in really tight rocks with my 4Runner. I actually got super lucky with only a cracked passenger side tail light on a slide that took me into a rock wall in Pass Canyon. When I hit I thought the whole quarter panel was going to be smashed and was amazed when I got out and realized it was just a blown tail light.

Thanks for the report and pics. Sorry to hear about the dog.

I've been reading about the Rubicon for 40+ years, but have yet to go there. Has the trail become more difficult over the years? It would make sense that it could have become more difficult as the trail is further eroded by each passing vehicle.

It seems like when I first started reading about it, vehicles with much less modifications could make it through with minimal damage.

Great trail report not long to the pont and good to read with pics. Good to sea that the 4runner did well. Glad the couple was okay. sorry for the dog.

Good for you man. That is 100% on my list but living in SC, I can only make it out west every couple of years and I usually get "caught up" in Moab.

Glad to see that your squad did pretty well getting through but my dog wheels with me so I can't imagine rolling up on that scene. Thanks for posting

I love it!

The Rubicon is non-stop. It's hard to really do justice to what it's like to have a non-stop obstacle that's basically the entire length of the trail. Glad you made it through mostly unscathed! It really is a testament to how tough the 4Runner is. At some points it feels like you're just sledding on rocks. I had some minor damage to the same passenger rear quarter panel on my 4Runner at the big rock at the very bottom of Cadillac hill. That's just so tricky to get around without sliding back down into that rock.

Very sad about the dog and that roll over. That part of the trail is no joke. They were lucky to get out uninjured. When I was there in about 2018 a guy died in a roll over right by our camp. Drunk, in a jeep at night, out playing on the rocks and rolled over - ejected and crushed. Was he being a drunk idiot? Sure. But someone that night still lost a son, a husband, a dad. Those high consequence spots are super dangerous to try to pass someone. Sometimes I think it would make sense to have Cadillac hill be a on-way from 6am to noon going up and a then maybe noon to 5pm down hill and 5-10pm again going up hill or something like that.

The trail changes a lot every year. There is an organization that maintains it. The goal is to make it passable by a CJ5 with 33" tires I think. They have a general idea of difficulty. But it also gets chewed up a lot between trail maintenance. And during the Jeep Jamborees they rock stack it to make it basically passable by almost any Jeep 4x4. So, that's usually the easiest it will be during the year. Until someone with 40 inch tires on a 600hp rock buggy comes through and rips it all apart again.

And the winters change it a lot. Those big car size boulders get moved around every year by the snow.

I've been told it was the easiest it has been in recent history around 2013 and it's a lot more difficult now than it was then. So, when Jeep took a Grand Cherokee through, it was quite a bit easier. I saw a few pics of the GC at the end - it had puked out all the transmission fluid it looked like, and there were no unwrinkled body panels. It technically make it - but it left on a flatbed as likely a total loss.

For sure, I would not have tried this trail with any other crew. All of us have a ton of experience and are all mechanically self sufficient. Absolutely needed for a trail like this.

You got lucky I also took out my taillight with this slip up I’ve accepted body damage on this thing because it a dedicated off-road vehicle and purpose built. Ironically up until this event most of my body damage happened on easy fire roads when debris kicked up at high speeds.

I’ve also already “fixed” the damage hiring a PDR repair guy. It’s not 100% but it’s good enough for me.



If I really wanted to I could get it fully repaired under insurance since the rubicon trail is classified as a county road ironically.


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It’s 100% a marathon and really mentally taxing. I agree with your assessment on how tough on equipment it is. I don’t think there is an inch of my undercarriage which isn’t scratched. Also for all those aluminum skid naysayers who think they aren’t strong enough. Mine held up just fine.

100% when we had the truck cleared we waited until a smaller group of Jeeps got onto the top of Cadillac Hill so they could warn folks not to go down. We had to drag and winch the Broken 1WD Pathfinder up that thing. Needless to say it was a pita


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