Until a few months ago I had a European AWD Transit with small tires (225/75r16) a fairly big camper box and without low range or diff. lock. We did almost 100.000 miles with it in Africa, Latin America and parts of the US. We had a mild lift of about 2 inches and good skid plates. It is surprising what you can do with this setup. Any type of bad track as long it is not too narrow, sand or mud within limits is possible. Rock crawling is not possible. In sand the performance of a vehicle with 4 powered wheels is essentially determined by the hight of the tire (clearance under the diff, a lift is useless because it doesn't change the clearance under the diff), the pressure per square inch the tire puts on the ground and the torque of your engine. In mud it is mostly determined by clearance under diff and tire profile. A Transit with the Ecoboost will have plenty of torque therefore low range is only necessary if you need to go really slow (rock crawling) or at very steep (more than 30%) hills. Tire size is limited to about 245/75r16 or 235/85r16 which isn't much. 265 would be a lot better. But even with our 225 we did all the tracks that came our way including Kalahari Desert, Okavango, Kakokoveld and the Atacama Desert. And yes we explored Canyonland NP and the area around Moab. The tracks are beautiful but at least the ones we encountered weren't really a challenge for our Transit.
