Toyo Trail Pass 2026 landed at Holcomb Valley Ranch in Big Bear, and we brought the whole crew up for it. Two nights of camping, a meadow filling up with built rigs, and a booth that stayed busy from the moment people started trickling in. The weather cooperated this year, which was not a given after last year’s freeze. What stood out was how often the same subject came up at the booth, and it was not tires or tents.
Holcomb Valley Ranch is the kind of place that makes an event feel like a trip rather than a parking lot. Ben Westreich, our marketing project manager, put it well. This was his second year camping here and his first time actually going off-road, on a simple trail, and he came back saying he might be hooked. He also got to make a cup of tea and watch the sun come up over the meadow, which is not something most trade events offer.
Jason, a content creator working with K&N, rolled in with a fourth-generation 4Runner, the V8 one. It exists because his FJ Cruiser was written off and he decided that if he was starting over, it was going to have the bigger engine. The build is deliberately straightforward. Thirty-fives, AlphaRex headlights and tail lights, a rooftop tent and a roof rack. Ask him what he likes most on it and he does not say any of that.
He says the rotors and pads. His reasoning is the same one we hear constantly once people start adding weight and tire to a truck. All that gear has to be stopped, and the factory setup was not specified for the rig he ended up with.
That was the pattern across the whole weekend. Ben spent the event talking to people who were looking at the next real upgrade to their rig and kept landing on the same place. Once a truck is carrying a tent, a fridge, armor and recovery gear, braking becomes the limiting factor long before anything else does. A big brake kit is usually the point where an overland build stops feeling heavy and starts feeling controlled on a descent.
George Garcia showed up with a new 4Runner, and he is honest that he had opinions about the styling first. The rear window still bothers him. He picked it up anyway because his Tacoma is built for long travel prerunning and is not the truck you want for a weekend of camping in the mountains. The new one runs a six-piston front and four-piston rear setup, and whether it gets a rooftop tent or just a rack depends entirely on how much his wife enjoys the next trip.
ICECO used the event to debut a Toyo Tires collaboration on their Go Pack, a twelve litre fridge in a weather resistant soft pack, limited to around two hundred units, with tread detailing on the base and Toyo badging on the strap. K&N were showing their washable and reusable filter line. Our own wholesale manager Peace has an entire rotation of ICECO sizes at this point, from the small one that goes to picnics with the dog to the big one the team runs on trips.
Events like this are the shortest path to finding out what people actually care about. You meet ambassadors you have only talked to online, you meet customers mid-build, and you get to hear the real question behind the purchase rather than the one in a support ticket. That is worth a couple of nights in a meadow, bees and all.