The Winterfold Sessions: Part 1

Winterfold Wood, south-west of Pitch Hill is one of the areas we sometimes ride where my trail knowledge starts to run out. I'd like to correct that situation, so armed with a small map and some tips from Roger at Head for the Hills, Tom, Dunnie and I arrived at Hurtwood CP4 on sunday morning. We met Simon, Richard (who joined us on our xmas ride) and another new rider Mark 3(!), a neighbour of theirs fielding a rather tasty new Boardman hardtail. A clear cold morning meant the remaining snow and slush in the car park had become a skating rink and we had to carefully walk to the first bridleway. The longish climb to the summit of pitch was made more challenging than usual by the snow, punctuated by mud and streams of meltwater.
As we got to the plateau I took us on a minor detour to a couple of jumps which we often tackle. It was all going so well until Simon hit the 2nd, slightly larger double....planting his front wheel solidly into the gap he was thrown forward into a spectacular half sommersault, landing hard on his back with the bike following in a similar arc. I have to say it looked bad but thankfully he was only winded and soon able to carry on (jumping was over for him though). Sadly not caught on film as it ranked with some of Dunnie's best efforts.
We reached the top of Pitch and then headed down a techy bridleway to a Car Park near the Windmill. A climb through a stream up to the Windmill followed and we than found "Judges Seat", an infamous feature with several challenging drop offs. We all decided that today wasn't the day to hit these first time and after speaking to another group of riders took a long, flowing bridleway down to Jellies' Hollow, a steep and fairly spectacular gulley. We messed around on this for about half an hour, trying various lines and jump options, a lot of fun and I have a feeling we'll be back there before too long.
Taking the bridleways back towards Pitch we came across a bomb hole trail we've ridden before and sessioned the bombs and a nice berm before we made the long climb back to the Winterfold car park. From here it was an easy roll back to the cars at Peaslake.
A really good ride and some new routes mentally mapped for the future. I'm still trying to locate "I Should Coco, 2 Headed Dog and Christmas Pudding!" so plenty more exploring to do over there - watch this space....