Two Bronco Raptors Taking on the Rubicon in One Day - August 21, 2025

Two Bronco Raptors on a straight through drive from Loon Lake to Tahoma. We were following well built Jeep 392 very familiar with the Rubicon throughout the day. This was my first time all the way through and his spotting certainly quickened my pace. The other Raptor is basically stock except for some additional skids and aftermarket rear bumper, but had done the trail earlier this year. This was his second time through. It was a gorgeous midweek day and we kicked off around 7:15. We were flying through the trail until we reached Buck Island Lake where the other Raptor had two valve stem failures in about 100 yards. The stock base Raptor +34 rims really expose the stem to rocks. Fortunately, we were in a great place to do the repairs. Two hours later we departed Buck Island Lake. The climb out was one of the toughest sections all day. We made good time to Rubicon Springs, however Big Sluice was a lot of work. Thankfully we were going downhill through this. We encountered a fair amount of inbound traffic on Cadilllac Hill and that really slowed us down trying to get vehicles past each other. Once this cleared the other Raptor got into a jam. When I came up it was precariously tilted uphill and (more concerning) to the side. The passenger front was pinned behind a huge boulder and the passenger rear was pinned against an even bigger boulder behind. After assessing the situation we secured the truck with a couple winch lines and the driver decided going up was the only way out. It was. We winched the truck straight uphill perpendicular to the trail, stacked rocks under the rear tires so it could rollout and 5 or 6 back and forth and he was headed up the trail. It was a pretty stressful experience (especially after 8 hours on the trail), but once we got a good safe plan the recovery itself went smoothly (although it didn’t feel that way at the time). We’re still not sure how he got into the position. I was able drive through after pretty easily (I did have a spotter!) afterward. A little more incoming traffic and we finished Cadillac hill, took the obligatory viewpoint pic and reached the Tahoma stating area by 8 pm.