Not sure if I've mentioned it here, but I've made plans and have about 15 other guys with Jeeps planning on coming down with me August 18th-21st to run the Rubicon trail. We'll be camping Thursday night at Loon Lake staging area, camping Friday night on the trail at Buck Island Lake, completing the trail Saturday and either heading back to Idaho Saturday into Sunday morning, or camping back at Loon Lake and leaving Sunday for a late Sunday arrival. I've also marked myself out for a late start on the following Monday in case we pull in late, as I hope to camp out once again Saturday at Loon Lake again just to unwind from the trip before loading up and heading on a 8 hour drive, not to mention it's unknown what time I'll complete the trail on Saturday of if we even do. Might take another day and camp out near the end again. We’ll see.
With camping 2 or 3 possible nights, I want get the ball rolling on the safari shell. I've been browsing around at different options, companies, and things I'd like and things I'll probably never use.
Now, onto the next step. For those who don’t like to read a ton this will be all future info and a source for me in the future, so a lot of wording is coming here.
At this point, I'm fairly certain I'm going with Front Runner and doing their canopy rack instead of a full length or ARB system. It'll be shorter than I initially planned, but with the camper shell I'll have plenty of room in the back of the truck for gear storage, leaving the rack available for the roof top tent.
Parts breakdown of what I want, what's in
bold will be the required items I want for this trip, the rest can come at a later date for budgeting reasons.
KRCA003T Slimline II 4'x7' Canopy Rack
The price on this is steeper than majority of the other racks I've looked at, but the accessories for these guys is pretty much endless, not to mention the prices on the accessories are cheaper than majority of the others which offsets the cost of them. Plus it's more versatile, it's a flat style that can haul canoes, snowboards, wakeboards, whatever I want. Then I can buy the Expedition rail kits to turn it into a basket if I ever wanted to.
TENT031 Roof Top Tent & TBMK004 TALL MOUNTS
Includes the mattress and everything. Looks pretty fancy, and sets up pretty easy. The tall mounts will elevate the tent high enough to allow accessories to be mounted to the rack, such as the awnings and other items.
TENT032 SHOWER SKIRT (ANNEX)
This connects to the bottom of the pop up tent. I’ll have the tent flipping off the rear of the truck rather than the sides, so this annex will cover the window on the shell along with keep the rear of the truck dry from the elements considering I no longer have a sealed rear end without the tailgate. This means I can leave the tiregate flipped open for supplies or whatever and not have to worry about locking the truck up for the night. Also, with 2 awnings which will be explained below, I can run one off each side of the truck this way with the tent going backwards, along with have coverage for anyone who might sleep in the back of the truck if that event were to ever arise.
RRAC028 SHOWER ARM & SHOW004 SOLAR SHOWER
Shower arm attaches to the side of the rack and extends the arm outwards. From there you can hang a portable shower off the arm. The shower itself holds 5 gallons of water, which I can hang off the side of the rack to absorb and warm the water up, then hang it off the shower arm inside the annex for myself or anyone else who wants to shower while camping or extended off road trips. The window on the shell will have to be down for this to work, but window down and TireGate open with clothes or whatever right there will work just fine.
RRAC012 GALVANIZED TIE DOWN ANCHORS
I didn’t bold this one as it will be split up. I plan to order two pairs so I can have them for the trip, later on I plan to order 3 more for a total of 5 sets. Two across the front/back, and 3 going down each side of the rack. For now 2 pair can strap down everything I need for this upcoming trip as it will only be a few of us loaded in my truck, the bed will suffice for all of our gear.
The rest of this will all be coming at a later date.
TENT043 EASY OUT 2M AWNING
Attached to either driver or passenger side of the truck, 2M (6 feet) wide. Will accommodate walls listed right below.
TENT049 2M AWNING WALLS
Can be used as a second location for people to sleep, or a quicker place to get to in order to avoid weather without having to climb the ladder and stay huddled down in the tent.
TENT036 EASY OUT 2.5M AWNING
Attached to the opposite side of the 2m awning, this one is 2.5M or 9 feet wide. Will accommodate the mosquito room below.
TENT039 2.5 AWNING MOSQUITO ROOM
Would be great for putting the pop up table for eating and keeping bugs out of the food. Also good for those who want to sit and relax and not be eaten by whatever kind of bug is around the area.
That is all the structural major stuff. The rest of the items I want for the rack are petty stuff. They have 2 different tables that have sliders that connect underneath the rack, keeping the table between the bottom of the rack and the top of the camper shell. One table is a prep table that’s narrow, the other is a full on camping table that is the same width, but wide enough to hold about 4 dinner plates.
At this point with the rack I do not plan on doing any lighting wise with it. The camper shell with have a pair of flush mount Rigid Dually Diffused lights on each side, that should be plenty of light to illuminate the awnings. I’m thinking inside the camper shell I’ll set some lights up so we can get the interior of the bed lit up, which with the TireGate being somewhat open and the rear window of the shell opened up should illuminate the annex as well. I also have the lights on the N-Fab rear runner that I’m going to wire to a switch that I can light up the annex with as well.
Now, depending on budgeting, this is the main plan for now. Rack, tent, annex, tie downs, etc. If something else arises with needing money, as I’ve completely blown my entire budget for like the next 6 months over these past few weeks with everything, I
MIGHT go with just the 2M awning and walls and use those for this trip. Basically I’d buy the mounts that would normally go on the rack and just mount them to the side of the camper shell, then in the future when I do get the Front Runner roof rack I’ll either cap the holes off with plugs or find something else to mount there. Right now the stuff I have marked I have within an allowed budget as my wife really wants to go on this trip with me, but these past few months have proven to me that I can’t always rely on everything going as planned.