What a surprise!! I turned up to the piece of land on the Saturday morning and was greeted by strong sunshine, only marred by the cool breeze. Anyone who knows the piece of land at Ash will realise that it is very flat apart from the two bomb holes, one quite small and the other being huge and the odd fallen tree and chalk area. As a result, for the White and blue routes at least, the only difficult sections to be found were 1, possibly 4 or 5 (faded memory) and 8, 9 and 10.
A lot of work was done to the ground to make things more interesting. The chainsaw was put to good use not to mention the machetes. With a great deal of area cleared and the dead trees cut up, there were a few spectacular and some adequate sections produced.
Section 1 seemed almost impossible. There was a nice rolling entrance down a gentle slope, between a pair of tight trees and then dipping into the small bomb hole before turning tight left half way out, turning right along the bank and then turning about 120 degrees up the slope and through a tight gap. This was too much for me and I took two 5s, a 2 and a 1. It was then a case of turning between another pair of tight trees and dropping down into the bomb hole again and turning tight back up and out the bomb hole. Very difficult turns in the wet but only really foiled by coming out the bomb hole the first time!
Then sections 2 to 8 weren't really worth talking about. Section 7 being VERY difficult only due to turning around a tree, staying on its roots. This was possible with a single dab but seemingly impossible to clean.
Section 8 is where things got interesting. There was a little hop over a few large roots, then a relatively tight turn, not because of limited space but because a less tight turn would limit space to run up to the obstacle. The obstacle just happens to be a 4 foot high, maybe more, lump out the side of the tree. Having jumped over that (probably with at least a 1!!), it was on to the step created by another arrangement of tree roots and then out, along the top and then a little squeeze through two trees to the gates.
Section 9 was even better! Dropping in the side of the bomb hole, there was a tight turn, up around the back of a tree and across the bank, dropping back down into the bottom. From here, the only way is up… up the steepest, longest side of the hole!! Blasting up the side, about 2 metres from the top there was a jump (lump in the ground) that it was hoped would carry you over the deficit of bank. Dropping back in, careering down the side into the bottom of the bomb hole, quick turn and then another blast, up between two trees (turning on the steepest part isn't easy!) along and down again, riding straight out the hole!
As if things weren't bad enough there was section 10… which wasn't as bad as we thought! The obstacle was a tree that had to be removed, leaving a big stump, which, with some creative chainsaw action, turned into what looked like a vertical rock step at the top of a reasonably steep slope. It really wasn't as difficult as we had hoped and so the blues were harder!
Ed!