BLUF
We took the rooftop tent off the 4Runner one December morning to put a Christmas tree on the rack instead. Cut the tree, drank hot cocoa in San Isabel National Forest, drove it home. The thing we kept coming back to: the rack didn't care what was on it. Tent on Friday. Tree on Saturday. Tent back on next weekend.
The rack as a platform, not a tent commitment
Most rooftop-tent setups are a one-mode commitment. Tent goes on at the start of the season. Tent stays on. Tent comes off at the end of the season. In between, the rack is a tent rack and nothing else.
That's a problem if you also want to use the truck for non-camping things — hauling a Christmas tree, taking a kayak to the river for one weekend, moving a piece of plywood from the hardware store. The traditional fix is: don't use the rack for that. Just put it in the bed.
The other option is: take the tent off in five minutes and use the rack for whatever's actually on the day's plan.
What we actually did that morning
We woke up in Buena Vista. Buena Vista is in Chaffee County. Chaffee County is mostly San Isabel National Forest. We wanted a Christmas tree.
The 4Runner had the rooftop tent on it from a winter overnight earlier that week. Step one was getting it off so the rack could hold a tree.
The tent came off in minutes. Sherpa EC roof rack, freed up. Time elapsed: less than it took to make the second cup of coffee.
Driving for the tree
Snow-covered trails. Mountains around us. The Forest in winter is what Buena Vista has that nowhere else does. We drove until we found a tree that looked right — tall, naturally shaped, exactly what we'd pictured. Cut it. Took a moment.
The hot-cocoa break
Jet Boil. Water. Cocoa. Mountains around us. Sometimes the gear is just the thing that lets you stop and drink hot chocolate in the middle of a national forest in December.
Tree on, drive home
Loaded the tree onto the same rack the tent had been on three hours earlier. Drove home on snow trails. Tree made it home.
Why this is in a blog about RTT mounts
Because the whole story turns on a five-minute tent removal. If the tent had taken an hour to come off, we'd have been in the truck bed instead. That's the part of a quick-release mount that doesn't get marketed: it changes what your truck can do on a given day.
The mount we use is the Slipstream.