Built for the 19th day past the pavement.
Lifted, armoured Sprinter 4x4s with the water and power to stay out for weeks. Every one is welded and wired in our shop in Sagehollow, then driven 212 miles of washboard, sand and rock before you get the keys.
- Builds from
- $168,000
- Build time
- 16 to 20 weeks
- Next open slot
- March 2027
Days off grid
Water or power: find out which one ends your trip
Every buyer asks us the same thing first: how long can we stay out? Set up your trip and see the answer for all three packages, worked out from the consumption logs of the 146 vans we have delivered.
Your crew uses about 5.6 gal of water and 2.1 kWh a day. Figures come from logs our owners sent back, not from a brochure.
Ridge
from $168,000
4days out
Water runs out first
Water, 25 gal4 daysPower, 400 W solar15 daysBasin
from $194,000
7days out
Water runs out first
Water, 40 gal7 daysPower, 600 W solarSolar keeps upReach
from $236,000
10½days out
Water runs out first
Water, 60 gal10½ daysPower, 800 W solarSolar keeps up
Basin spec sheet
$194,000 on a 4x4 Sprinter 170, 18 weeks
- Lift
- 3 in, coilovers and rear leaf pack
- Tires
- 35 in mud-terrain
- Approach angle
- 31°
- Departure angle
- 23°
- Ground clearance
- 11.6 in
- Fresh water
- 40 gal, insulated, inside the cabin
- Solar
- 600 W on the roof rack
- Battery
- 600 Ah lithium, 7.7 kWh
- Armour
- Full skids, sliders, winch bumper
Estimates assume 75% solar yield and 90% usable battery, parked with no driving. An hour on the road puts back about 1.2 kWh through the alternator charger, so a moving van lasts longer than this.
Everything below the floor is steel we cut ourselves
Most conversion shops buy the off-road parts and bolt them on. We build the armour in the same room as the van, so every plate fits your fuel tank, your water tank and your exhaust route.
01 Lift and suspension
Two to four inches depending on the package, on coilovers we set to the finished weight of your van, not the empty one. We weigh every van before the final spring rate goes in.
02 Skid plates
Five plates in 3/16 in steel under the engine, transmission, transfer case, fuel tank and water tank. Each one comes off with six bolts so a service is not an afternoon.
03 Rock sliders
Bolted to the frame, not the body, and rated to carry the whole van on a high-lift jack. They double as the step into the side door.
04 Winch bumper
A 12,000 lb winch behind a plate bumper with the light bar recessed so it survives a brush with a juniper. Standard on Basin and Reach.
05 Tires and spare
All-terrain or mud-terrain on steel beadlock-style wheels, with a matching full-size spare on the swing-out. Nobody should limp home on a donut in the desert.
06 Recovery kit
Traction boards, soft shackles, a kinetic rope, an onboard compressor and a tire plug kit, all strapped where you can reach them with the van nose down in sand.
Three owners, 61 days out, one tow. Theirs, for a stranger.
Owners send us their water and battery logs after big trips. These three are from last year, one per package. Sample logs for this concept.
Basin
14 days in the Beartooth high country
2 people, alpine, shower on, 65 L fridge
Snow on day three and no sun for two days after it. The diesel heater ran every night. They drove out with 6 gallons of water and 71% battery left.
Reach
29 days in the Owyhee canyonlands
2 people, desert, shower on, 90 L fridge
Refilled once from a spring through the onboard filter on day 17. On day 22 the winch pulled a stranger’s pickup out of a sandy wash. That is the one tow in these logs.
Ridge
18 days on the Lost Coast
1 person, coastal, shower off, 45 L fridge
Fog nine mornings in a row put the battery at 20% on day nine. Forty minutes of driving to the next beach brought it back. Water never came close.
Vasko Kravic has welded since 1994, trailers first, then rock crawlers. Every slider and skid plate on a Cragmaw carries his bead.
18 weeks, and you are welcome in the shop for every one
A Ridge takes 16 weeks, a Reach 20. We send photos every Friday, and the coffee is on if you want to see your skids before they are painted.
Weeks 1 to 2
1 Strip and weigh
Your Sprinter comes in, the rear is stripped to bare metal, and we weigh it on each corner so the suspension is built for your van, not a spreadsheet.
Weeks 3 to 6
2 Lift and armour
Vasko cuts, bends and welds the skids, sliders and bumper in the shop. Then the lift goes in and the van goes back on the scales.
Weeks 7 to 11
3 Power and water
Lithium bank, solar, alternator charging and the water system, all mounted inside the cabin so nothing freezes at 9,000 ft or cooks in the Mojave.
Weeks 12 to 15
4 Cabin
Bed, galley, storage and the shower if you want one. Aluminium frames and marine plywood, fixed so nothing rattles on washboard.
Weeks 16 to 17
5 The shakedown loop
Two days on our test route with the data logger running. Every rattle, drip and odd reading gets fixed before you see the van.
Week 18
6 Two days on the trail with you
Handover is not a parking lot. We drive out together, air down, winch, recover and set up camp, and you drive the last stretch home.
We drive 212 bad miles so your first mile is not a test
The Cragmaw road is the washboard canyon track behind the shop that gave us our name. Every van runs the full loop over two days with a data logger on the fridge, the pump and the battery. Anything that rattles, drips or reads wrong gets fixed and the section gets driven again.
- the full loop, two days
- 212miles
- of washboard, the rattle finder
- 64miles
- of soft sand at 18 psi
- 11miles
- the one creek crossing
- 22in
- the top of the climb
- 9,400ft
Cragmaw in numbers
- Vans delivered since 2013
- 146
- Days, the longest owner trip without resupply
- 41
- Cragmaws brought home on a flatbed
- 0
- Build slots a year
- 6
Nine people, one shop, nothing sent out
Delia started Cragmaw in 2013 after nine years of pulling stuck vehicles out of the Ruby Mountains. She still drives every van on its shakedown loop.
Delia Dervin
Founder, drove search and rescue in the Ruby Mountains for nine years
Vasko Kravic
Fabricator, every weld under every Cragmaw
Iggy Tallis
Electrical, designs each power system from your trip list
Benedikt Ruhl
Cabin builds, trained as a boat joiner
What owners told us after the first long trip
Sample reviews for this concept.
“Delia asked where we actually go before she talked about layouts. We said three weeks in the Utah backcountry every fall, and the van she built does exactly that, with water to spare.”
Ruthanne P.Basin owner, second season
“The handover trip was the best money in the whole build. I had never winched anything. By the second afternoon I was pulling Vasko’s truck out of a wash on purpose.”
Farid A.Reach owner
“Two years, 31,000 miles, most of it dirt. One loose skid plate bolt, which they spotted at the first service before I did.”
Gus and Wilhelmina T.Ridge owners
Build slots
Six vans a year. The next slot opens in March.
Tell us where you want to go and for how long. Delia replies herself within two working days with a package, a price and a start date. A $15,000 deposit holds the slot and is refundable until the strip-down starts.
(555) 014-4040Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm. 2280 Tailings Road, Sagehollow.