Threw a few pics together of our drive down from Coyote Flats into Bishop. We camped at a lookout point the last night and I think the drive down from here was in the hour range.
Jon's Nissan has the Advanced 4x4 conversion. It did great although as far as we know there are no lockers available for it yet. It went everywhere we did except for one short rutted out hill climb.
It appeared to take everything smoother than I did with the independent front end.
I think the lack of a low range is probably the biggest issue from a gearing standpoint. Some hills I could not go up unless I was in 4lo because of the gearing not so much the 4x4. I tried coming up the first set of switch backs in 2hi, 4hi and 4lo. There were several times after stopping that the van would not even move forward up the steep incline in 2hi or 4hi.
Now I am at max weight which I am sure has a lot to do with it but 4lo was a must for me on the gearing side. Also coming back down you would be riding the brakes the whole way. With 4lo I was able to stay off the brakes a lot of the time but I now want an even lower 4lo.
I am sure there are some experts on here that have some better advice but if you van is heavy you will need 4lo....