2026 Forest River Cherokee Wolf Pack397STAY

The Wolf Pack 397STAY leaves Forest River's factory at 13,869 lbs dry, with a published GVWR of 16,155 lbs and 2,286 lbs of cargo capacity between the two. Cargo capacity is 14% 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 96-gallon fresh tank spends 797 lbs of that 2,286 lbs before anything else is loaded.

Dry pin weight is 2,155 lbs, which is 16% of the dry weight. That figure lands on the truck's rear axle and comes straight off its payload rating - not its towing rating, which is the number most often quoted and the wrong one for this decision. Pin weight rises as the trailer is loaded, and a fifth wheel loaded toward its cargo capacity will put substantially more than 2,155 lbs over the bed. Read the payload figure on your own door sticker rather than a brochure maximum for the model.

Tank capacities are 96 gallons fresh, 74 grey and 74 black, 148 gallons of waste capacity against 96 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 Wolf Pack roster this is the 11th of 12 floorplans by dry weight, in a line that runs from 6,253 lbs to 14,884 lbs. It sits in the heavier third of the line. 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 13,869 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 15,012 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 16,155 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. 397STAY is a Wolf Pack designation and this site does not decode it into a layout claim.

Wolf Pack is the toy-hauler roster inside Forest River's Cherokee family, and it is published as a single list holding two towing classes. Five floorplans are Wolf Pack Limited travel trailers, 6,253 to 8,988 lb dry with 1,115 to 1,490 lb on the tongue. Seven are Wolf Pack Limited fifth wheels, 9,313 to 14,884 lb dry with 2,155 to 3,310 lb on the pin. The lightest fifth wheel is heavier than the heaviest bumper pull, so the two halves do not overlap and nothing on this roster is a borderline call - either a plan needs a bed-mounted hitch or it does not.

Fresh water is the single biggest line in this floorplan’s load plan. A full 96-gallon tank is about 35% of the 2,286-pound cargo capacity — enough that whether you tow with water aboard is a real decision on the 397STAY rather than a detail.

The published dry pin weight of 2,155 pounds is 16% of this floorplan’s 13,869-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 16,155-pound GVWR the 397STAY is towing 2,286 pounds more than its 13,869-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 96 gallons of fresh against 74 grey and 74 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Ranked by GVWR, the 397STAY sits 8 of 12 in the Wolf Pack line: 16,155 pounds against a line that runs from 11,315 to 17,310 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: Wolf Pack 290PACK13 is 1,685 pounds lighter at 14,470 lb GVWR; and Wolf Pack 352PACK15 is 590 pounds heavier at 16,745 lb GVWR.

Against the 397STAY: the Blackthorn 3750LK is 35 lb lighter and 3 ft shorter; the Cedar Creek 290RL is 60 lb lighter and 9 ft shorter; the Sandpiper 3900HBLR is 70 lb lighter. 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 Wolf Pack floorplans profiled here run 6,253 to 14,884 pounds dry and 27 to 45 feet of exterior length across 12 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 Wolf Pack line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 11 of them for the 397STAY. 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: interior height, sleeps, slide count, axle count, tire specification, refrigerator, air conditioning. 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 (85%) 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.