If you’ve been into vehicles at any level within the final 5 to 10 years, it’s possible that you just’ve been uncovered to “overlanding.” This is the off-road phenomenon that prizes longevity, reliability and luxury for lengthy distance over the power to do loopy rock crawling, and so on. Seen a Nineties Land Cruiser with a fridge and a roof tent and desperately need each it and the life-style it guarantees? You’ve been overlanded-ed-ed-ed.
Like most of you, I think, I received sucked into this world of underpowered and overpriced SUVs with many tons of of kilos of drugs making them slower and costlier. How may I not? They’re rad, and as somebody who’s carried out a bunch of the kind of climbing obstacles and articulating suspensions off-roading, the overlanding factor appears extra nice. This is why when the parents doing PR for gear manufacturers Decked, Roofnest and Leitner Designs reached out to see if I’d wish to spend every week with a kitted-out Ford Ranger, I basically misplaced my thoughts and stated sure earlier than I knew what I’d do with it.
The week I’d have it will span Labor Day weekend. If you’ve by no means tried to camp someplace throughout that weekend, it’s mainly not possible. Everywhere with devoted tenting spots is completely rammed and since I’m a potato, I didn’t ebook stuff far sufficient prematurely. The answer to this, I discovered, is one thing that a couple of parks in Southern California have known as dispersed tenting. Essentially, you pay to get into the park after which so long as you’re no more than 20-30 toes off the path, you possibly can camp wherever you need without cost.
My answer, then, was to go south of LA to Anza Borrego State Park, one of many largest parks in California. Luckily, this place, which is often a furnace in late August, early September, was 80 levels, post-hurricane, and it was supposedly dry sufficient that this desert tenting journey wouldn’t flip right into a muddin’ extravaganza. I coerced my spouse into coming with me and waited for this Ford Ranger to get dropped off.
Of course a very powerful a part of any overlanding dialog goes to be concerning the gear. Luckily, this 2022 Ranger XLT FX4 has loads of gear that’s price speaking about. While the parents who loaned me the truck symbolize Dekced, Leitner and Roofnest, all of which had merchandise affixed to the truck, I’m going to start out with the extra mechanical bits of the construct. First, we’ve a giant, gnarly ARB bull bar with a winch and spotlights. Below that there’s a full complement of aluminum skid plates which have been fitted to assist “journalist-proof” the truck. This was sensible.
The truck additionally had smaller metal wheels with chunky however slender Firestone off-road tires and an Old Man Emu suspension. If overlanding, you would possibly suppose that is sounding like an particularly Australian-style construct, and also you’d be proper. Further defending the physique was a set of rock-sliders. The mattress of the truck was occupied by a pair of Decked pull-out drawers, which rule, in addition to a severely overbuilt and durable Leitner Designs roof rack and rack-mounted side-opening bins, in addition to a water jug that can be utilized for a bathe. On the highest of that rack is a Roofnest Condor Overland 2 roof tent and a 270-degree batwing-style Roofnest awning. There can also be a rack over the cab of the truck.
Inside, issues are largely Ranger apart from the CB radio — probably the most highly effective unit allowed with no license — and a lighting management panel. The management panel is rad as a result of the button for entrance spotlights seems to be just like the cartoon model of Milo from the Descendents, and Milo guidelines. He went to varsity.
As you would possibly suspect, having all this gear (as superior as it’s) modifications the driving dynamics of a truck, despite the fact that it is a comparatively gentle construct with out issues like a diesel engine, a number of alternators, fridges, and so on. Still, this mild-mannered EcoBoost ranger returned a borderline-shocking 12 mpg on the freeway and only for comparability, my 2003 Ford F-250 longbed, two-wheel drive pickup with a V10 gasoline engine and handbook transmission did 17mpg unladen. Also, wind is terrifying when you’ve a gentle suspension and that a lot weight up excessive.
Still, this truck wasn’t constructed for the freeway, it was constructed for open expanses and rugged trails. So, borderline terrifying freeway manners apart, my overview is concentrated on the off-road driving expertise, and, extra importantly, the tenting expertise. I’ll say that this isn’t a truck you’d wish to day by day drive, but it surely’s not the worst factor I’ve tried to dwell with for every week.
After a nearly-three-hour freeway slog from Pasadena to Anza Borrego, we turned off the paved highway on the Sin Nombre path. This path entrance is on the southern finish of the park and our plan was to drive in, camp after which drive out of a extra northerly entrance within the morning. Once we hit the filth, the sacrifices that the Ranger made on-road have been instantly made good. The noisy and squirmy tires grew to become comfortable and grippy. The gentle suspension stopped being too gentle and have become good to absorb rocks and ruts and even washboard. The Ranger totally got here into its personal.
If you’ve by no means spent a lot time within the low deserts of Southern California, I like to recommend it. There’s a sort of alien magnificence on show that guarantees hazard and dehydrated demise do you have to not respect it. Sin Nombre canyon path confirmed us lovely eroded sandstone and streambeds, just lately smoothed by the hurricane that blasted Southern California’s deserts. Despite the vacation weekend, we have been the one folks on the market that we may see.
At one level, throughout our sluggish trek alongside a streambed, we got here throughout a Mazda CX-30 that was buried to the tops of its wheel wells within the sand. We stopped to test for folks and once we discovered no person, we stored going. This was a reasonably stark reminder of what may occur if you don’t respect the surroundings. We trucked on by extra slot canyons and dry riverbeds till we reached an open space with an indication that learn “Devil’s Drop-Off.” Being a pure Slayer fanatic, I felt obligated to test it out.
After round 10 minutes of driving, post-turn-off, we got here to a bluff that ignored an enormous desert valley and determined that, since this was technically off the path, we’d camp. The sense of isolation and sweetness on provide right here is one thing I take into consideration now, months later, frequently.
Now we got here to a very powerful a part of overlanding: the tenting. Finding a comparatively flat piece of floor to park on was fairly simple and from there it was only a matter of establishing the tent and awning in addition to our kitchen stuff and our firepit which is similar enclosed metallic firepit that we use on our again porch. Ground fires aren’t allowed in Anza Borrego, however that’s a reasonably small ask, all issues thought-about.
Setting up the rooftop tent was each simpler and barely extra complicated than I anticipated. The of us who loaned me the truck naturally despatched over documentation and even tutorial movies on easy methods to set each the tent and awning up and I each learn and watched them, however I didn’t save them to my cellphone. This meant that I had some trial and error, although nothing that I wouldn’t have properly in hand on a second outing with this rig.
Unlatching the tent and folding it out proved tremendous simple, as did deploying the ladder, although I’d have been extra comfy with it being a scosche extra vertical, on condition that I’m a mega-human. Still, nothing collapsed or killed me and as soon as deployed with home windows open, the tent proved to be an totally attractive place to soak up the view. This was aided by a very nice reminiscence foam mattress pad that did a wonderful job of softening the plywood base of the tent.
Once deployed, I tossed some sleeping luggage, pillows and a flashlight within the tent. Storing every thing else within the truck proved tremendous simple due to the additional storage from the Leitner containers. These guys have been tightly sealed, so I didn’t fear about climate or mud getting in, and tremendous sturdy so I additionally wasn’t anxious about tweakers breaking in whereas I finished for Jack In The Box within the desert. The solely bummer with these and the Decked drawers, was the veritable galaxy of bizarre, tiny keys that got here on the keychain with this truck. If I had my druthers, I’d see about keying all of them the identical, or not less than by group, so I wasn’t fiddling round on a regular basis. Small gripe, although.
Like the tent, deploying the awning would have been a breeze had I managed to avoid wasting the directions like an inexpensive grownup. Still, after some cautious examination by my spouse (who’s significantly better at placing issues collectively than I’m) we figured it out and had every thing expanded and staked out. Our whole set-up time, together with screwing round with out directions, was round half-hour. Halving that may be simple with a bit follow.
Once the tent and awning have been arrange, we put out our firepit and our locally-sourced (to maintain pests out) firewood, lit that child off after which arrange our newly-acquired camp range which we received from Big 5 for like 30 bucks plus two cans of butane, and made some actually pleasant pita grilled cheese sandwiches. We additionally lit a bug candle, loved watching some bats wreak havoc on the native insect inhabitants, and drank completely an excessive amount of beer from our cooler.
Short of some guys who seem like they ran the 909 space code Post Malone and 4Chan fan golf equipment displaying up in some underglow-clad desert-destroying full-sized pickups and lighting off fireworks, our evening tenting was superb. Until I went to mattress after which needed to expertise the truck swaying with the wind. If it was my rig, I’d discover some technique to assist the truck when parked to stop this. Or, fake it’s a ship.
In the morning, minor hangover apart, taking every thing down was virtually as simple as establishing. The large problem right here was getting all of the gentle elements of the tent to suit into the onerous shell with out protruding. We tried like 4 instances to make it work and ultimately gave up and simply shoved every thing in. Was it safe? Yep. Was it the correct method to do that? Nope.
Despite that, and a questionably low gasoline tank, the drive out of Anza Borrego was fairly uneventful. I solely needed to interact four-wheel drive on the Ranger as soon as after which it was simply four-wheel excessive. That’s extra a testomony to the Ranger’s setup and the simple path than to my driving means, but it surely completely pegged my confidence meter, which is at all times good.
Once we received cell service we seemed up the closest gasoline station, which was 17 miles within the incorrect route, proper subsequent to the Mexican border. We stuffed up and set off again residence. The gasoline mileage was as dangerous because it was on the way in which down, however the truck seemed markedly cooler with desert mud throughout it.
So, having been mildly obessed with overlanding for years, did this journey whet my whistle or did it simply fan the flames? Well, keep in mind in Terminator 2 when Sarah Connor has the dream of clinging to the fence as a skeleton throughout a nuclear blast? Yeah. I spend loads of time used SUVs like that on Marketplace, a lot to my spouse’s (and my finances’s) chagrin.
It’s such an superior feeling to have the ability to be miles off the highway, in the midst of nowhere, and simply have a couple of minutes between you and a fully-equipped campsite. I completely get the attraction, and whereas I don’t know that I’d wish to begin with one thing as new and good as this Ranger, one thing like a Land Rover LR3 with a couple of goodies sounds mighty good to me. Now, I simply should persuade my spouse…
Source: jalopnik.com