Twin Peaks

Thirteen friendly faces greeted me at a slightly overcast Gomshall Station. I’m not sure they’d have all turned up if they knew what was coming (which is probably why some forward thinking types didn’t bother) - the ‘Gomshall Climber’ was about to strike again!

Rather unsurprisingly we started with a long slow ‘climb’ towards Hurt wood. Circumventing Peaslake and sadly just missing BNB, we began the steep ascent to Pitch Hill, the first of our peaks. Reaching the summit we were rewarded with the first rays of sunshine and a too good to miss photo opportunity.

Winterfold Wood beckoned and we were finally rewarded with a lengthy, slightly soggy, downhill. This is when things really became interesting. It looked like we’d taken a wrong turning, or so I thought as the trail suddenly turned into a raging torrent of cascading water!!! Ok it wasn’t that bad, in fact it was more of a gentle stream and we all had fun wading through the newly named Winterfold Waterfall!!

Riding through, ‘not the tea stop Peaslake’ I’m sure I could hear tummies rumbling or was it just muffled grumblings of, ‘why are we not stopping for a cheesy twist and hot mug of tea’. It’s funny how the pace quickened as I announced that Leith Hill was the scheduled stop.

Reaching our second peak of the day we all welcomed the break and the food, so much so that nobody even bothered to take in the view - The ‘Climbers’ work was done. After a slight detour, ooops, ‘Deliverance’ emerged and Gareth, Lee, Jack and John took up the challenge. Shouts of ‘get off the brakes’ were completely ignored as Jack teetered on the edge of disaster the whole way down - but fair play to him for having a go, which is more than can be said for the rest of us - quickly moving on. We sneaked in Summer Lightning, and then made a fast descent to Wescott and looped back to Gomshall.

With 23 miles in all and no punctures or mechanicals 13 smiley but tired faces left the car park.

Thanks to my usual back marker - you know who you are!