Jeep Badge of Honor Trails—AZ Edition

Nightmare9

Nightmare9

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For anyone who doesn't know; Jeep has 56 "Badge of Honor" Trails in the United States.

https://www.jeep.com/badge-of-honor.html
Arizona has two of them:

Schnebly Hill Trail (leads from Highway 17 to Sedona)

Table Mesa Road (about 50 miles south of Sedona)

We took a little trip to Show Low, Flagstaff, and Sedona over the Turkeyday Week. I wanted to get both badges done, since we were right there.

Here is my review of the Trails.

Schnebly Hill Trail
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/schnebly-hill-trail
16 Mile trail between Sedona and the I-17 Freeway. If you drive from Sedona to the 17 the trail is mostly uphill gaining 2700 Feet. We chose to start on the 17 and head down into Sedona. The trail is a pretty standard fire road with lots of smaller rocks. I completed the entire trail in 2WD and I'm sure I could have gone uphill in 2WD also. It was a nice connector trail with basically NO obstacles. I think it took about 2.5 hours. There was some traffic/congestion near the bottom.
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate the trail about a 4.

Table Mesa Road
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/table-mesa-road-trail
WHAT the ACTUAL F***? This "trail" is a complete joke. I have no idea why/how this made the list.
9 Mile Out and Back
100% well-groomed fire road with occasional washboard sections. We didn't air down and completed the entire 9 miles in like 15 minutes. That includes me trying to figure out why the gate at the end was closed.
This complete TRASH trail drives through the desert and you pass 2 different mining operations and a couple of target shooting ranges. At the end of the 4.5 Mile Road is a locked gate. I guess you can pay $7 to park in the middle of nowhere and go for a hike. This was a complete waste of time, but at least it was only 15 minutes on the way home. The most challenging part of the trail was probably the cattle guard...
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate the trail about a .1

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While in Sedona we also did a couple of other Trails. You can look them up on All Trails:

Diamondback Gulch​

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/diamondback-gulch-ohv-trail
Not a great Trail. Mostly flat and rocky. I would not recommend or do again.

Van Deren Cabin OHV Trail​

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/van-deren-cabin​

Fun little trail. BUT the first mile or so is shared with hikers. I feel bad for all the people that have to deal with dust from the Jeeps and the RZRs. The Park Service really needs to cut a walking trail off the main road.

This trail has a couple smaller obstacles and a river crossing depending on the season. No water on this trip. The trail ends at a cabin that appears to be in the middle of nowhere. But if you walk 20 yards behind the cabin you will find a golf course and country club,

Broken Arrow OHV Trail​

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/broken-arrow-ohv-route​

Very Fun little trail. Top trail we did this trip. Not very difficult, but pretty scenery and several short obstacles. The trail is very popular with the local "Tour" groups, so you get to dodge the Pink and Red Jeeps. But definatly worh the trip.

Up near Flagstaff we also took a trip through

Cinder Hills OHV Area​


https://www.alltrails.com/parks/us/arizona/cinder-hills-ohv-area
Very fun area. The volcanic rocks are like small pebbles in most of the area. It is similar to driving in sand only you get better traction. We completed a 15ish mile loop and drove up several medium size hills. There are some hills that look VERY difficult. I'm sure I could do them on my Suzuki LRT450, but I'm not sure our RZR 800 could make it. DEFINATLY worth stopping by for the CRAZY looking scenery.


First Pic if from Broken Arrow

The second Pic is from Cinder Hills

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Cind1.jpg
 
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@nk24
Are the Steps (Devil's Staircase) the steep downhill after the Merry go 'Round Rock? If so, they seemed to have a LOT of extra dirt on them. And there was a dumb person standing in the middle of the road waiting for 2 Tacomas to come down the hill. He only moved out of the way when my tires slipped a couple of times. :ROFLMAO:
 
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Nightmare9 said:
@nk24
Are the Steps (Devil's Staircase) the steep downhill after the Merry go 'Round Rock? If so, they seemed to have a LOT of extra dirt on them. And there was a dumb person standing in the middle of the road waiting for 2 Tacomas to come down the hill. He only moved out of the way when my tires slipped a couple of times. :ROFLMAO:
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That’s the one. I would not stand at the bottom, no matter how skilled the driver is!

I missed the turn to go that way when I was there and ended up coming back down the two-way and didn’t have time to turn around once I realized my mistake. I walked up the trail to see the steps/staircase and was surprised at how steep they looked. I can only imagine how it feels inside the cab.
 
Awesome reviews, it sounds like Table Mesa Road needs to be removed from the “badge of honor trails” 😂
 
starkey480 said:
I’ve never driven all of table Mesa road but there are some really good rock crawling spots off of that road that I’ve done. We should take a trip to Sedona sometime and do broken arrow. It’s a very fun scenic trail
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That would be fun. Makes you wonder why Highway to Hell isn’t on their Badge of Honor list 🤣
 
After running a handful of the Badge of Honor trails, I'm inclined to think that some of them are included more for historic or scenic reasons rather than for difficulty. Schnebly Hill is a beautiful drive, but mostly it is just bumpy and doesn't really require 4WD. It is definitely historic though as it was originally carved out around 1901 as a shortcut to get from Sedona to Flagstaff, cutting the trip from four days down to two.
 
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nk24 said:
After running a handful of the Badge of Honor trails, I'm inclined to think that some of them are included more for historic or scenic reasons rather than for difficulty. Schnebly Hill is a beautiful drive, but mostly it is just bumpy and doesn't really require 4WD. It is definitely historic though as it was originally carved out around 1901 as a shortcut to get from Sedona to Flagstaff, cutting the trip from four days down to two.
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There’s definitely a mix when it comes to the badges. Some just seem to make you go explore new areas, not necessarily a bad thing.
 
RINC said:
Still have not run Table Mesa rd to the east. Loops around to Carefree.

I loves me some desert views.
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I did that one this past Spring; New River to 7 Springs and Care Free. Beautiful drive with a few challenges along the way.
 
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nk24 said:
After running a handful of the Badge of Honor trails, I'm inclined to think that some of them are included more for historic or scenic reasons rather than for difficulty. Schnebly Hill is a beautiful drive, but mostly it is just bumpy and doesn't really require 4WD. It is definitely historic though as it was originally carved out around 1901 as a shortcut to get from Sedona to Flagstaff, cutting the trip from four days down to two.
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That would be my guess as well. I doubt Jeep wants to intentionally send people down some KOH style extreme rock crawling trail 🤣
 
Odd that they include "Table Mesa Rd". That is just the linking road to many of the best offroad trails in Arizona. Lower and Upper Terminator are probably my favorites because you can take a less experienced driver and get them through a rock crawling style trail. But there's Diehard, Collateral Damage, Anaconda, Annihilator, Predator, Raw Deal and more out there... Many can challenge even the most capable rigs and some like Annihilator are often considered buggy trails.
 
After reading reviews, looking at maps, and actually seeing the area I'm pretty sure Jeep just screwed up. Several people think they intended to have the EAST side of the road be the trail, but the map link and the link they give to All Trails takes you to the WEST side of the freeway.

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This is the trail on the EAST side of the Freeway:

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/table-mesa-road--2
Table Mesa OHV Road is a 21.5 mile moderately trafficked point-to-point trail located near New River, Arizona that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for ohv/off road driving and is best used from October until May.
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I haven't ordered the physical badge yet. IF I put Table Mesa it will only be as a joke.
I did see them selling for like $30 on eBay.
This seems a little excessive

Badges.jpg
 
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