Nissan showed a Pathfinder XE-V6 concept at the SEMA Show ahead of the SUV's 40th anniversary next year, Overland Expo's Compass reports. The build adds a custom 4-inch suspension lift, 35-inch Yokohama Geolandar M/T tires, tube bumpers, a WARN winch, rock rails, skid plates and a roof rack, on the production Pathfinder Rock Creek's 295-horsepower V6. Nissan hasn't said whether any of the parts will be sold.
Jeep is offering 35-inch tires from the factory on the Gladiator for the first time, through a 35-inch Tire Launch Edition on Willys, Rubicon and Rubicon X models, Off-Road.com reports; until now the package was only on the Wrangler. It pairs the tires with a matching suspension, performance brakes, heavy-duty Dana axles, 4.56 gears and a full-time 4:1 transfer case, raising ground clearance to 12.9 inches and the approach angle to 46.7 degrees, with breakover at 23.3 degrees and departure at 26.7. Pricing and on-sale timing are on Jeep's configurator.
The Bouquet Fire is 100 percent contained at 1,048 acres, the Angeles National Forest says, and nothing remains closed. The Drinkwater OHV area and forest roads 6N18 (Saugus del Sur) and 6N19 (Quarry Road) reopened at 4 p.m. Monday, October 12. Rowher Flat reopened, and all evacuation orders were lifted, on Friday evening, October 9.
The fire started October 3 near Bouquet Canyon Road south of Bouquet Reservoir and grew quickly in brush that had not burned in decades. The federal incident report puts the final cost at about $4.5 million.
A Burned Area Emergency Response team, with engineers, hydrologists, archaeologists and a wildlife biologist, has been assessing soil stability, watershed conditions and damage since October 9. The team's findings will guide stabilization work. Riders using Drinkwater should expect freshly graded roads and stay off any areas the forest posts as closed after that assessment.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is taking public comment on a proposal to enroll about 57 miles of existing roads and trails in Becker County in the state's OHV grant-in-aid program. The Woods and Wheels ATV Club proposed the Ice Cracking ATV Trail, with Becker County as the local government sponsor.
No new trail would be built. Enrollment would bring state cost-share money to maintain the existing system, and the route would connect Two Inlets State Forest east toward White Earth State Forest and a wider OHV network. The grant-in-aid program is a partnership between the DNR, a local government and a local club that funds trails for ATVs, off-highway motorcycles and off-road vehicles.
Written comments are due by 4:30 p.m. Friday, November 13, by email to the address in the DNR's release, with the trail's name in the subject line and body, or by mail to Molly Lou Pintok, principal planner, Minnesota DNR Parks and Trails Division, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155. A map is on the DNR's OHV trail plans and proposals page; questions go to 651-259-5095.
All evacuation orders for the Bouquet Fire were lifted at 6 p.m. Friday, October 9, the Angeles National Forest says, and the Rowher Flat OHV area reopened at 5 p.m. the same day. The Drinkwater OHV area remains closed for public safety, along with forest roads 6N18 (Saugus del Sur) and 6N19 (Quarry Road).
Our Friday edition did not have this; the forest's update came after we checked.
The fire is holding at 1,048 acres and 83 percent contained. Graders are repairing dirt roads chewed up by engines and heavy equipment. A Burned Area Emergency Response team began work Friday, with engineers, hydrologists, archaeologists and a wildlife biologist assessing soil stability, watershed conditions and damage. Their findings will guide emergency stabilization work and decisions about when the rest of the area reopens.
Permits are required at the Imperial Sand Dunes from October 1 to April 15. The Cahuilla station is coming down, and Cement Flats is closed to camping.
The permit season at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, the BLM's busiest site, began October 1 and runs to April 15. A permit is required for the primary vehicle, the street-legal one that brings you there. Weekly permits are $55 bought in advance and $70 on site, and a season permit is $185. Buy them online at isdpermits.net or from approved off-site vendors.
The big change this season is the ranger station. The BLM vacated the Cahuilla Ranger Station off Gecko Road in April and plans to demolish it late this year, with a new station due in summer 2028. Until then, a temporary ranger station at Cement Flats sells permits and has emergency medical trailers for walk-in injuries.
That means Cement Flats itself is off-limits. A BLM order closed the Cement Flats area to camping and recreation from September 8, 2026, through February 2028 while it serves as the temporary station. Pick another camp.
Permits are not needed for day visits to Osborne Overlook, the Plank Road site, Buttercup Ranger Station or the Watchable Wildlife Area. In an emergency, call 911; the El Centro Field Office is at 760-337-4400.
Riders planning a mid-October trip to the Standard Wash OHV Area near Lake Havasu City should plan around the 2026 Raptor Rally 003. The Bureau of Land Management's Lake Havasu Field Office will temporarily close and restrict selected public land in the open area from 11:59 p.m. October 14 through 11:59 p.m. October 17, the agency announced October 1.
Land in and around the event will be closed, restricted, or set aside as spectator areas. The BLM will mark closed and restricted areas at key access points with signs, fencing or barriers. In past race closures at Standard Wash, the racecourse itself was closed to public entry and the rest of the open area was placed under restrictions, but the boundaries are set event by event, so check this year's map rather than last year's.
The closure map is attached to the BLM announcement and copies are at the Lake Havasu Field Office, 1785 Kiowa Ave. The field office is at 928-505-1200.
Winnebago has been building motorhomes since 1958, and the ARKA is the third model in its Backcountry line, alongside a Class C and an adventure van. It is pitched as an off-grid truck: capable off pavement, carrying enough water, power and insulation to stay out for up to fourteen days, sleeping four and seating six.
The significance is not the vehicle, it is who built it. Overland rigs have been the province of small builders and one-off fabricators, sold at expos to people who understood the trade-offs. A company with a dealer network and a warranty department entering that space means the category has become large enough to industrialise.
Buyers get something real out of that: service coverage, parts availability and a financing path, none of which a boutique builder can match. What they give up is the thing boutique builders are good at, which is a vehicle configured for how one person actually travels rather than for the median of a sales forecast.
The independent side has not stood still. Slide-in campers built from honeycomb composite sealed with polyurea, aimed squarely at the payload ceiling of midsize trucks, are doing something a mainstream manufacturer has no reason to attempt.
If you are shopping, the question is not which is better. It is whether you want a vehicle you can get fixed in an unfamiliar town, or a vehicle built for exactly the trip you take.
The Boulder Concept turned up unannounced at the New York show in April: an upright, two-box, four-door SUV on what Hyundai says is its first fully-boxed body-on-frame architecture for the United States. The company calls it a pure design study, which is accurate and also beside the point. What it previews is a platform, and the platform is confirmed.
The first production vehicle on it will be a midsize pickup, due by 2030, competing directly with the Tacoma, Ranger and Colorado. Hyundai has committed to designing, developing and building it in North America with its own U.S. steel. An SUV related to the Boulder is expected to follow, and senior people at the group have indicated the platform will reach beyond the Hyundai badge.
Read the concept itself carefully. Ladder-frame construction, an off-road stance built around aggressive approach and departure angles, and 37-inch tires on the show car. Concepts wear tires that production trucks do not, but the proportions are drawn around a real frame rather than sketched over a crossover, and that distinction is the whole story here.
No powertrain was announced, which at this distance is normal and also the single most consequential unknown. Whether this lands as a diesel, a hybrid, or something electrified decides whether it competes with a Tacoma TRD Pro or with something that does not exist yet.
Four years is a long horizon in this segment, and a concept is not a commitment to a shape. What is committed is the frame, the factory and the segment. For anyone who buys a midsize truck every eight or ten years, this is worth filing away rather than acting on.
Air down. Dropping pressure lengthens the contact patch, which improves traction on sand, rock and washboard and takes a great deal of punishment out of the ride. It costs nothing, it is reversible at the next gas station, and it does more for capability than most of what people bolt on. Carry a deflator and a gauge you trust, and air back up before pavement.
Carry a full-size spare that matches what is on the truck. This is the reason a mid-trim package with a full-size spare can be the smarter buy over a higher trim without one. A temporary spare on a forest road is a slow limp at best and a second recovery at worst.
Check the closure before you drive, not when you arrive. Forest orders change weekly through fire season, and a road closed for hazard-tree work does not announce itself at the highway junction. Agency alert pages and the fire incident sites are the authority; anything else, this paper included, is secondary.
Match recovery gear to the rig and the trip. Rated recovery points are worth more than a longer strap, and a strap anchored to something that was never designed to be pulled on is how people get hurt. If you are travelling alone, that changes the kit considerably — self-recovery is a different problem from being pulled out by a friend.
Last one, unglamorous: know the payload and know the fuel range with the actual load in the truck. Both numbers change with a build, and both are more likely to end a trip than a hill you could not climb.
They remain the only two SUVs you can take the roof and doors off, which is most of why people cross-shop them at all. On price the Jeep starts lower, around $36,000 against roughly $40,500 for the Bronco, and stays lower the whole way up the ladder. At the top the Bronco Raptor asks about $80,000 while the most expensive Wranglers, the Moab and Willys 392, sit near $70,000.
The catch on the Jeep's entry price is doors. Lower Wrangler trims come as two-doors and four doors cost extra; every Bronco has four. Reviewers generally hand the Bronco the on-road manners and the Wrangler the value, and both give up a lot of fuel economy for the privilege of the shape: high teens to low twenties for the Bronco's four-cylinder, worse for the 2.7 and worse again for the Raptor.
If you are buying for capability rather than badge, the useful middle of the Bronco range is the Big Bend, which brings heated seats and navigation, carries a full-size spare, and can take the Sasquatch off-road package. A full-size spare matters more than most option boxes the first time you tear a sidewall a long way from pavement.
One number worth checking against your trailer: the Bronco tows 3,500 pounds, 4,500 in the Raptor, well short of what the Wrangler and 4Runner will pull. Ford has also announced a 2027 Bronco done with Filson, the latest in a line of heritage collaborations, which will be a styling and trim exercise rather than a capability one.
Ten years ago an off-road trim meant a Wrangler, a 4Runner or a body-on-frame Land Rover. The category has since widened to the point where nearly every mainstream crossover has a version with more clearance, chunkier tyres and a skid plate.
Toyota's redesigned 2026 RAV4 is hybrid-only and includes a Woodland version aimed squarely at trailheads. Subaru continues to extend its Wilderness line; the Forester Wilderness starts just under $40,000, and a hybrid version has now been shown for 2027. Hyundai used the New York show to display a rugged concept that reads as a preview of a production midsize truck.
Buyers who still want a frame under them have the Lexus GX, which makes no apology for being truck-based and pays for it at the pump, and the Ineos Grenadier, built for hardship rather than refinement and returning fuel economy in the mid-teens either way.
On the electric side, Rivian's smaller R2 is the one to watch: roughly 9.8 inches of clearance, more than 300 miles of range, and a price expected around $55,000, with a more aggressive R3X shown alongside it.
The through line is that off-road capability has become a trim level rather than a vehicle type. Whether the hardware underneath justifies the badge is a question for the first washboard road, not the brochure.
Toyota brought the Tundra Trailhunter to Loveland for its first public showing, which is a choice worth noticing. The Trailhunter line is aimed at overlanding rather than desert running, and showing it to a field full of people who already own roof tents is a more honest test than a convention centre stand.
Alongside it the company showed a rugged off-road concept built on the global Hilux platform and described as purpose-built for overlanding. The Hilux is not sold in the United States, which makes a concept on that platform at an American show an interesting thing to put in public.
The full-size overland trim is a crowded category now. Ram and Jeep both ran vehicles on the driving course at the same event, and the heavy-duty aftermarket showed up in force with suspension systems for current F-250 and F-350 trucks.
What none of it settles is whether a factory overland trim beats the same money spent on a plain truck and a builder you trust. That argument was being had in the campground all weekend.