Grasschopper

Ok so I've got a 2 door JK and I'm trying to get my family to the mountain to ski/snowboard. My daughter is 8 so her skis do actually fit in the trunk area but my board and my son's board not only don't fit in the trunk but barely fit in the back seat and that's if my son isn't in the back seat with my daughter. I searched the forum here and found a TON of dead photos, found photos of hard tops with rails mounted and found one shot of a 2dr soft top with a Thule system that mounts to a hitch mounted bike rack that hangs bikes. I don't have that sort of bike rack so if I was to go that route I'd have to buy that too...which sucks because I already have a Kuat NV bike rack (so way better than any hanger rack).

I have 2 sets of Thule bars and do have a set of Thule ski/snowboard racks for them but no want to mount.

Surely there HAS to be some sort of ski/snowboard solution for soft top JK owners.

Any help or suggestions would be great.

BoraBora

I've been snowboarding for 10 years, and only had the JK for 2 years. This has been my biggest dilemma with the JK, and I'm sorry to say I haven't found a great solution yet. I've been stacking the boards (bindings collapsed)/bags over each other delicately.

What I plan on doing is fabricating a mount for the spare tire, much like those bicycle mounts. There are some options out there right now, but they all look like crap, mount the boards and skis vertically, and are insanely overpriced. Are you running the stock tire carrier? Wouldn't be a bad time to upgrade, and make your own mount.

Grasschopper

So I run the stock tire carrier currently but I'm actually thinking of running with no spare and deleting the carrier.

So I too am thinking of fabing something up. My plan revolves around buying something that's currently made and modifying it to hold Thule bars. The skis/boards would be mounted vertically....though I suppose I wouldn't have to mount it like that....hmm.

Grasschopper

Ok I've come up with a plan I'm going to give a shot. Just ordered an Allen Sports 5 bike carrier hitch rack from Home Depot. Yeah I was shocked Home Depot had this but it was also like half of the retail price at $91 with free shipping so I figured what the heck. I'm going to pull the bike mounts off of this and put my Thule ski racks on it. I want the bars to be a bit farther apart and lucky for me we have a machine shop and a good welder so I'm going to extend the spacing of the bars as well. Will be interesting to see how this turns out...and of course I'll post photos.

KurtOffroad

I have a JKU and had this same problem especially since i have the Tuffy security tailgate enclosure. My only option was to just lay the skis across all the gear in the back. If I had more than one passenger it was a bigger issue. I had the Hard Rock 4x4 full sport cage put in and then realized I was able to just use some Titan straps around the cage/skis which kept them mounted and up out of the way of the gear in the backseat. Not a cheap solution but it worked once I had the cage put in.

JerseyDevilJK

I would try using the Thule Tram ski carrier which should bolt right up to the rack you purchased once the bike arms are removed.

Ripa777

rhino rack has a backbone system for JK.

Jahamm88

He's looking for soft top options...

I do think there is a hitch or OTS spare tire solution that would work

Grasschopper

Ok so as I stated above I ordered that Allen SPorts 5 bike rack....from Home Depot as the price was $91 shipped. FWIW it's nearly identical to this rack sold by Quadratec and frankly Quadratec should NOT sell this unit. Why do I say that? Well read the reviews and you'll see it (I did after ordering, glad I paid a lot less)...you simply cannot open the tailgate with this rack installed. Tilting the rack down does nothing to improve this either...I will post photos later to show why. I'm not even sure it would clear with the spare removed...in fact I don't think it will.

So anyway what I did with the Allen rack is to remove all the bike parts and then simply mount my Yakima FatCat ski racks on the rods. Boom...works great to transport the gear. I'm not even sure you really need more spacing between the racks...though I haven't tried skis yet...just boards.

Photos coming once I can wash the Jeep...looks like it will get into double digits on Wednesday so shooting for then.

Grasschopper

Ok so loading this up this morning for the photos I discovered the WHY of why Quadratec sells the 4 bike version of this rack vs the 5 bike version I got. The 5 bike version puts the 5th bike on the vehicle side of the rack upright. I thought this was perfect because I put one of the mounts of the ski rack up there which will prevent any chance of it slipping off the bars. Well what I didn't consider is tilting the rack up. I would never run it this way but the way I have things set up loading more than one board/pair of skis is a massive PITA, so I thought I'd put it up to load. Well the vehicle side of the 5 bike version hits the spare. This won't be an issue for ME for long as I'm going to take my spare off very soon.

But here you go...my Allen Sports rack with bike holders removed and Yakima ski racks mounted holding a pair of snowboards.
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Spare hit's rack almost instantly even when tilted out.