I'm absolutely interested...
Couple questions off the top of my head...
How much fuel needs carried?
Do Jeeps with trailers have to bypass all obstacles?
What are the best times (least weather risk/lowest census) times to go?
Any minimum rig requirements?
Good questions!
Fuel, depends on rig, but for comparison i normally carry around 35gal. 15ish in the rear, 10 ish under my seat I believe, and 2 5gal jerry cans. This is including my drive up the mountain, and i normally still have both jerry cans full and enough in the tanks to get to gas on the other side. My uncle only has the rear 15 gal tank and 2 5gal jerry cans and tends to get into at least one of the cans, but we don’t just wheel the rubicon up there, normally camping for a few days minimum.
But depending on plans etc we’ll have to kind of map it out and each person bring what they’re comfortable with. More on that later in the planning thread.
Trailers, you would need a good off road built one with a older flexible (pintle?) hitch would be best. Lots of twisting and flexing on this trail, so beefy. There are rigs and trailers capable of going through all obstacles. A lot of our group may be doing “bypasses” anyways depending on how comfortable each person is in the potential for body damage.
Weather / time wise is touch and go. Generally end of may through end of october is pretty safe, but this year snow was solid until late last month (june). The holiday weekends are packed, as is the beginning of the season weekends. Mid week is better for easy going group and not being rished or crowded as easy. There are two weeks in July that the trail closes to public for private event. You have to pay them to run it on those weeks.
Minimum requirements is a loose subject. We’ve been through a lot of it in forced 2 wheel drive (broken front ring and pinion once) high gearing, and all that. We have upgraded our rigs to handle a lot of whats needed to make it a smoother less eventful and less chance of breaking stuff type of ride. Lockers, 33” + tires, low crawl ratio, and experience have all made extreme difference in our ability to get around up there without incident... when we get back from CO trip this year, i’ll put some more thought into that.
