Page 48 - The Wish Stream Year of 2021 (Crest)

As soon as we hit the plateau of the mountain, the weather closed in, the wind was a new and challenging experience that the entire expedi- tion took to battling with determination. Hav- ing summited Skiddaw, the expedition decided to get into the descent, wasting no time at the summit with the wind chill getting to us all. The scree covering the ground under our tyres took some getting used to; however, special mention should go to OCdt Wisbey and OCdt Woodyear for taking to the new terrain like a duck to water. Unfortunately, we had a tyre damaged which could not be fixed in situ due to a failed pump, so expedition leader OCdt Sheppard offered his bike to another member of the Exped so that they could enjoy the experience. The descent was an amazing experience with much of the valleys below lying right in our view, and what a beautiful view!
Our guide and instructor, Miles, led us down the hill with whoops of joy at every opportunity, with the Exped following close behind. After an hour or two descending, we hit the woodland trails that led to the car park.
On the final day of the expedition, expedition Ex MUDDY and Ex MUDDIER CADET spent the day on the trails together. To begin, we did the Quercus Trail including the longer loop – this was approximately 7.5km of ground covered. This
trail is graded a blue for difficulty and contains gentle berms, rolling jumps and wide gradual climbs. The Quercus Trail is suitable for interme- diate mountain bikers with basic off-road skills and reasonable fitness. This gave everyone in the group a good chance to warm up and work on technical aspects of their riding that had been highlighted as areas needing improvement on the difficult trails the day before. The Whinlat- ter purpose-built trails offer a much smoother and easier riding experience compared with the riding off the edge of Skiddaw. Once we had warmed up on the Quercus Trail, we moved onto the more challenging South loop of the Altura Trail. 200m from the end of the Quercus Trail we picked up the Altura South loop which was another 7km of trail. This loop ended up being a favourite of the group. The slightly more challenging riding paired with one extremely fun downhill section with some jumps and techni- cal berms meant it offered an all-round brilliant mountain biking experience.
After completing the South loop, we returned to the car park for a bite of lunch. Once everyone had finished their food, we went straight off back around the Altura South loop. We flew round the loop on this iteration which was familiar to us and with it being the final trail of the adven- ture training week, everyone wanted to bring together everything they had learnt.
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