2026 Forest River Cherokee Timberwolf16ML

The Cherokee Timberwolf 16ML leaves Forest River's factory at 7,109 lbs dry, with a published GVWR of 11,240 lbs and 4,131 lbs of cargo capacity between the two. Cargo capacity is 37% of the loaded rating, and Forest River's own definition is worth reading before you plan against it: cargo capacity is what remains for fresh water, gear, food, batteries and every dealer-installed accessory. Fresh water alone is 8.3 lb per gallon, so filling this trailer's 40-gallon fresh tank spends 332 lbs of that 4,131 lbs before anything else is loaded.

Dry tongue weight is 1,040 lbs, or 15% of the dry weight. Ten to fifteen percent is the conventional band for a bumper-pull trailer, and this plan sits inside it as published. Tongue weight is not fixed: it moves with how the trailer is loaded, and weight added ahead of the axles raises it. A weight-distribution hitch is the normal fitment at this tongue load, and the tow vehicle's tongue-weight limit is a separate number from its trailer-weight limit.

Tank capacities are 40 gallons fresh, 40 grey and 40 black, 80 gallons of waste capacity against 40 gallons of supply. The ratio is what governs how long the trailer can sit off hookups: waste capacity exceeds fresh, so the fresh tank is the binding constraint and refilling extends the stay. Forest River publishes these three figures per floorplan, and they are the factory's numbers rather than a segment average.

Against the rest of the Cherokee Timberwolf roster this is the 1st of 11 floorplans by dry weight, in a line that runs from 7,109 lbs to 12,589 lbs. It is the lightest plan in the line, which makes it the one to look at first if the tow vehicle is the constraint. Comparing floorplans inside one line is more reliable than comparing across brands, because every figure here comes from the same factory channel on the same day.

A useful way to read the pair of weights is to stop planning against the dry figure. Nobody tows a trailer at 7,109 lbs: that is the weight before water, batteries, propane, bedding, food, tools and anything the dealer bolted on. Load half the published cargo capacity, which is modest for a family trip, and this plan is already near 9,175 lbs on the road. Compare that number against the tow vehicle, not the dry weight, and leave margin on top of it - the published GVWR of 11,240 lbs is a limit rather than a target.

Every number above was captured twice from Forest River and checked against itself before it was published. The line roster block and the individual floorplan page are two separate factory renderings of the same trailer, and this plan's 4 shared figures agree exactly on both. Dry weight plus cargo capacity also equals the published GVWR exactly, which is the arithmetic check this site runs on every profiled floorplan. Where a figure is missing from this page it is because Forest River does not publish it in this channel, not because it was hard to find - and the row says so rather than being quietly dropped.

Forest River publishes no floorplan description for this plan in the channel this page is built from - only the numeric specification block. Rather than describe a layout from the floorplan code, which would be a guess dressed as a fact, this page carries what the factory publishes and says where it stops. 16ML is a Cherokee Timberwolf designation and this site does not decode it into a layout claim.

Timberwolf carries the widest cargo spread of any line in this group: 876 lb at the bottom of the roster and 4,296 lb at the top, a factor of nearly five, on trailers 7,109 to 12,589 lb dry. Two of the eleven published plans are in a separate mini-loft travel-trailer grouping and the other nine are destination trailers. Dry hitch weight stays between 1,040 and 1,614 lb across the whole range, so the hitch figure alone will not tell you which end of the line you are looking at - the cargo number will.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 40-gallon fresh tank is roughly 8% of the 4,131-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 16ML with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry tongue weight of 1,040 pounds is 15% of the 7,109-pound dry weight, which sits inside the 10–15% band usually quoted for stable towing. It is still a dry figure: loading the front pass-through and the fresh tank both push it up.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 11,240-pound GVWR the 16ML is towing 4,131 pounds more than its 7,109-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 40 gallons of fresh against 40 grey and 40 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Of the 11 Cherokee Timberwolf floorplans profiled here, the 16ML is the lightest by GVWR at 11,240 pounds — the entry point to the line and the one most likely to suit a vehicle already at its limit.

Either side of it in the same line: Cherokee Timberwolf 20OG is 35 pounds heavier at 11,275 lb GVWR.

Against the 16ML: the Jay Flight 34RSBS is 10 lb heavier and 10 ft longer; the Jay Flight SLX 34RSBS is 10 lb heavier and 10 ft longer; the Palomino Puma 340DB is 13 lb heavier and 11 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 travel trailers 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 Cherokee Timberwolf floorplans profiled here run 7,109 to 12,589 pounds dry and 28 to 45 feet of exterior length across 11 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 Cherokee Timberwolf line hub.

Named sources publish 10 of the 18 specification fields this catalogue tracks for the 16ML (77% complete on the full field set).

Not published for this floorplan: interior height, sleeps, slide count, axle count, tire specification, awning, refrigerator, air conditioning. Those rows are left blank rather than copied from a sibling floorplan.

Sourcing rules: methodology.