Thanks for this. Yes I am in Surprise, work in central Phx and spend weekends up in Prescott area. You were able to do Broken Arrow in a bone stock 4Runner with no carnage or scraping? I find that hard to believe. The 4Runner just doesn’t have the clearance even in Pro trim. I WOULD bet that a bone stock Rubicon Unlimited could do broken arrow without any scraping at all. AZ is unique, you are correct and I really do appreciate your input as I can relate to it perfectly. If I thought a bone stock Pro(mine does have upgraded tires) but stock otherwise could do Broken Arrow without trail damage I would not even be considering a Rubicon as that is about as rad as my wheeling gets. But, as you know here in AZ with tons of large rocks on our more challenging trails a solid front axle and more clearance is truly where it is at.
Broken Arrow is about as straightforward as they get. You have a small ledge up to the Submarine rock I think it is called that is no problem at all.
Then you have the area before the Devil's Staircase. Here, you can scrape or not depending on your experience. I did not when I was fully stock clearance wise. I did when I had temporarily a front 1" lift and nothing in the rear. I took a step straight instead of sideways so the rear scraped. But that's fine. I have Rockmen rear lower control arms for that reason.
After that very short section, you have the staircase itself. There is a bad hole in the middle at the start but because the path is so narrow, it would be hard to fall in it; it would require a very inexperienced driver to do so.
The place where I hit my front skid plate when I had stock clearance was at the bottom of the stairs, when I stopped paying enough attention. I cleared that spot easily at 1" lift, which you have from the factory if you have a Pro.
On Backaway to Crown King, you have all sorts of optional crap. But on the main route, you have 3 spots to pay attention to:
1/ The rocky riverbed. I can do that in a lifted Subaru.
2/ The step after a small creek bed crossing after the riverbed. That would stop a Subaru. I did scrape my 3/16 skid plate there.
3/ The hardest spot on trail by far is a large embedded rock after the step. It is in the middle of trail and unavoidable. You WILL scrape something there, no doubt. I scraped a bit of my right main frame rail on that rock as I was fully stock clearance wise. However, I did have rock sliders that took the real hit.
Finally, hits and scraping are a normal part of offroading. I don't care if you are an inexperienced driver or Lite Brite, you will be hitting and you will be scraping, albeit in different types of terrain. There is nothing wrong with that so long as they are mild. Also, I have 3/16 full skids to use them, not to look pretty and same for my sliders.
So, yes, I was fully stock clearance wise but I was armored and I do and have been using my armor. That's why I paid for it, not to look at it
When I say you need a Rubicon, I mean:
Terminator, Ajax, Bad Medicine Bypass. Those are trails a 5th gen 4R cannot touch.
When I see you need a heavily modded Rubicon, I mean Axle Alley, Highway to Hell, and then for buggies you have the various TV trails in the Table Mesa areas as well as other stuff to the SE. I don't have personal experience on those, but I have read enough and walked one of the hardest extreme TV trails. I have zero interest in any of those.
If you are new to offroading, you need to accept that the vehicle is much more capable than you and that this will remain the case for at least a couple years. A Rubicon is overkill for Broken Arrow or Crown King.