An Early-Season Bike Ride to the Inner Basin

A week ago we rode our mountain bikes up Waterline Road to the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks. We were expecting to run into snow so we were not surprised when we did. Most of the snow was easily bypassed — as seen in the photographs below. But not all of it. Just below Jack Spring and the Inner Basin shelter we encountered deeper snow that required us to push our bikes.

Inner Basin and Fremont Peak.
Inner Basin and Fremont Peak.
There's still plenty of snow in the Inner Basin.
There’s still plenty of snow in the Inner Basin.
Mountain biking down the Waterline Road.
Mountain biking down the Waterline Road.

And above the Inner Basin shelter there was quite a bit of snow. More pushing through spring snow conditions to the wide-open expanses of the Inner Basin. Looking at the face of Fremont Peak (Arizona’s third highest mountain) I could see recent ski tracks. It would have been fun to see the skier(s) who put in these turns.