Elephant Hill / Needles: Advice on Overlanding Rig?

I'm considering doing a trip to the Devil's Kitchen area via Elephant Hill in the Needles district of Canyonlands. This would be a more serious trail than I've done yet, and I'm hoping to get a little advice on what additional modifications we would need to make this kind of trip safe and fun. Long term, the goal is to keep this rig light but capable, given the weight of the topper, camping gear, etc.. but willing to mod a bit more.

I drive a 2021 Toyota Tacoma DCLB with a AT Atlas topper. A few relevant mods:

• Icon stage 3 suspension, front threads tightened as far as Icon says is okay.. ~2" lift?
• Deaver stage 3 expedition rear leafs, timbren active off road bump stops
• 265/75/R16 tires
• AL rock sliders

Would it be crazy to drive elephant hill with this rig? Would it make a substantial difference to go up to 285's? Is it stupid to do this without a front bumper or more armor? Also.. any advice on reducing the rake is welcome.. I expected to get a little more lift in the front than we ended up with, but not sure where to go from here.

Thanks!

 

You’ll be fine if you add a real engine, transmission and transfer case skid. I did this trail a few years ago in a lifted 4Runner on 32s and put all the skids to good use. The taco is a bit longer wheelbase so you’ll hit them even more. Super fun trail but it does have plenty of spots to bottom out

 

I did elephant hill with somewhat similar setup. As long as you have a good spotter for the first climb, you will be fine

 

I did Elephant Hill back in the early '80's in an '83 Toyota 4WD longbed pickup. Stock everything, but it was a manual transmission, 4-cyl engine. We did fine, but the road is probably hella more beat up and traveled now. (Crikey! Some guy in Cali wants almost $39K for that truck! Shoulda kept it....)

 

Could do it without armor but will probably scrape in bottom area - T case, rear diff, transmission. Just need really good spotter. Going up to 33’s would definitely help although it looks like you have an ok lift based on that picture.