2027 Forest River Cedar Creek361RL

The 361RL is the rear-living step up from the entry 290RL. At about 14,004 pounds dry across 39 feet it adds length and road presence while keeping the same couples-first rear-lounge layout — a rear living area with swivel recliners and a free-standing dinette, a central kitchen with an island, and a private front bedroom with a king bed and a full bath. The full Cedar Creek build carries through: the 101-inch widebody Z-frame, 3M-bonded fiberglass sidewalls, the Rhino Box hitch and Road Armor suspension.

Forest River lists a published 16,625-pound GVWR against the 14,004-pound dry weight, leaving a 2,621-pound payload and a 2,625-pound dry pin. Dual Coleman MACH 8 15,000-BTU air conditioners, a 20-cubic-foot stainless residential refrigerator, a four-burner gas oven, a Suburban 60,000-BTU tankless water heater and a 200-watt solar package with a 1,000-watt inverter are standard, across three slide-outs and an 18-foot awning.

At a starting MSRP around $136,000 it sits just above the entry plan. For a couple who wants a longer, more substantial rear-living Cedar Creek — and who tows with a properly rated three-quarter-ton or one-ton truck — the 361RL is the natural mid-size rear-lounge plan.

Cedar Creek is Forest River's flagship full-size luxury fifth wheel and the first Forest River fifth wheel in this catalog — a direct rival to Keystone's Montana and Grand Design's Solitude. The 2027 fifth-wheel line runs to eight floorplans, and all eight are profiled here in full. The 361RL on this page is highlighted; each other plan links to its own page.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 75-gallon fresh tank is roughly 24% of the 2,621-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 361RL with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry pin weight of 2,625 pounds is 19% of this floorplan’s 14,004-pound dry weight. Fifth-wheel pin weight rides in the bed of the truck, so it comes off payload rather than off tow rating — and it rises with the trailer as you load it, not in proportion to what you put over the axles.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 16,625-pound GVWR the 361RL is towing 2,621 pounds more than its 14,004-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 75 gallons of fresh against 82 grey and 41 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Ranked by GVWR, the 361RL sits 2 of 8 in the Cedar Creek line: 16,625 pounds against a line that runs from 16,095 to 18,000 pounds. That position is the useful thing to know, because the plans immediately either side of it are the real alternatives.

Either side of it in the same line: Cedar Creek 290RL is 530 pounds lighter at 16,095 lb GVWR; and Cedar Creek 380DB is 190 pounds heavier at 16,815 lb GVWR.

Against the 361RL: the Montana High Country 377FL is 5 lb lighter and 2 ft longer and sleeps 6 more; the Columbus 383RLH is 10 lb heavier and 2 ft longer; the Puma Mesa 383RLH is 10 lb heavier and 2 ft longer. Those are differences in the published numbers only — what they cost, how they are built and how they live are separate questions each of those pages answers on its own terms.

Those are the nearest fifth wheels from other lines by weight — one per line, picked by proximity on that figure and nothing else. They are listed so the same tow vehicle can be checked against real alternatives, not because they are equivalent inside; layout, build and price diverge sharply across that group.

For scale, the Cedar Creek floorplans profiled here run 12,254 to 15,429 pounds dry and 35 to 43 feet of exterior length across 8 plans. Where a floorplan falls in that spread usually says more about which vehicle can tow it, and which site it fits, than the layout name does.

Every profiled floorplan in this line, with the full weight table, is on the Cedar Creek line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 18 of them for the 361RL. The rest are not shown, because the alternative is reading a figure across from a sibling floorplan or from what the segment usually does — and a number nobody published is worth less than an admitted gap.

Not published for this floorplan: tire size (a tire description is published, a size is not). If you find one of these in a manufacturer document for this plan, it belongs on this page.

The completeness figure at the foot of this page (98%) measures the same thing on the full field set: it is a measurement of how much this floorplan’s manufacturer publishes, not of how much research went into the page.

How every figure here was sourced and checked is set out on the methodology page.