OEX Mountain West: Trails, Tacos, Towing, and Time with Subaru Owners

By: Carey Lando, Founder of MtnSubi Consulting & Adventures

Overland Expo Mountain West gave us a little bit of everything this year: a big owner trail run, Colorado mountain views, tacos on the trail, towing with the Forester Hybrid, educational seminars, and plenty of time hanging out with Subaru owners and R&D staff at Base Camp.

We kicked things off with a 27-vehicle trail run into the Colorado mountains. Along with owners, we had several members of Subaru R&D joining the convoy in a TrailSeeker and an Ascent, which made the day even more fun. It’s always a good opportunity to have the people behind engineering these vehicles to join us out on the trail to see how owners actually use them.

For this run, I also decided to try something people ask me about all the time: towing with the Forester Hybrid.

I pulled our loaner HEO adventure trailer for the day, which gave us a great place to keep all of our lunch equipment organized while also giving us a chance to see how the Forester handled a small trailer in a real-world off-road setting. There are always questions about what these vehicles can tow and what that feels like once you leave pavement, so rather than just talk about it, we figured we’d go try it. TLDR: This lightweight trailer ROCKS!

• 

• 

• 

The route itself was intentionally pretty mellow. The goal for these owner events isn’t to make the trail as difficult as possible. It’s to get people out there, help them build confidence in their vehicles, and give them a great day in the mountains.

And Colorado definitely delivered on the scenery.

We had views for days across the valleys and mountains, and one of the most interesting sections of the route took us through an old burn scar. You could still clearly see the effects of the fire across the landscape, but the area was also full of wildflowers and new growth. It was a pretty incredible reminder of how quickly these places begin to change and recover.

About halfway through the day, we stopped and did one of our favorite parts of these events: trail lunch.

• 

• 

• 

We broke out the cooking setup from the HEO trailer and made tacos for roughly 45 people right there on the trail. There’s something pretty great about pulling a big group of vehicles into the mountains, setting up lunch together, and giving everyone a chance to hang out outside of their cars for a while.

After lunch, we finished the route, regrouped at the end, and our guide team helped everyone air their tires back up for the drive out. From there, the owners headed over to check in at Base Camp Subaru, where they would spend the rest of the weekend camping together during Overland Expo.

• 

• 

• 

For Milton and me, though, the weekend was just getting started.

We spent Friday through Sunday at the Subaru booth at OEX Mountain West delivering educational seminars throughout the day. The topics were all based around the questions we hear constantly from owners:

• How to Outfit Your Subaru for Adventure

• How to Off-Road Your Subaru

• Off-Road Lighting for Your Subaru

• My Subaru Has No Spare Tire... Now What?!

And then there was probably the most fun one of the weekend: our live axle change demonstration.

Milton walked everyone through a real Subaru axle change step by step, including the tools we carry, how we approach the job on a lifted Subaru, and the little details that matter when you’re trying to do it safely and correctly. We also handed out a simple take-home guide with the tool list, torque specs, and full sequence so people could follow along during the demo and keep it for later.

It was such a hit.

People crowded in, asked a ton of questions, and got to see that a trail repair that sounds intimidating is a lot less mysterious once someone actually breaks it down in front of you. That’s exactly the kind of education we love doing: practical, approachable, and immediately useful.

We also had some fun giveaways during the seminars, including Diode Dynamics SSC2 light pods, GlueTread tire patch kits, and Subaru hats and mugs.

These seminars are always one of my favorite parts of an event because they give us a chance to move beyond just showing people modified vehicles. We can actually talk through why we make certain choices, what owners really need, what they probably don’t need, and how to build capability without making things unnecessarily complicated.

And after spending the day talking in the booth, Milton and I would hop back in the cars Friday and Saturday evenings and make the roughly 45-minute drive back out to Base Camp Subaru.

Those evenings were a completely different side of the event.

We got to hang out around camp with owners and Subaru R&D staff, talk about vehicles without a microphone in our hands, hear about everyone’s trips and builds, and just be part of the community for a few hours before driving back to Loveland for the night.

It made for some very long days, but it was worth it.

The thing I continue to like most about these events is that they aren’t just about driving a trail or standing in a booth. The trail run, the education, the conversations around camp, and even something as simple as cooking tacos together all build on each other.

People leave knowing a little more about their vehicles, feeling a little more comfortable taking them somewhere new, and hopefully already thinking about where they want to go next.

More confidence. More capability. More adventure.