Penultimate Ten Tors Walk

News - 30th Apr 2024

We’re used to early starts with Ten Tors training and this past Saturday was no exception with a 6am meet at school. We divided up the pupils into two teams and they then packed away their team's kit into their backpacks. It’s unusual for us to have quite so many students at this stage of the training able and willing to take part in the team’s weekend which is testament to the resolve this year’s adventurers have shown. Given the increased numbers in the groups we had to burden them with an additional tent per team to make it true to the challenge.

Teams started at the north west corner of Dartmoor at Prewley Moor and were supervised via checkpoints as they made their way south all the way to Princetown some 28km away. After putting up the tents and cooking their evening meals it wasn’t long before the camping field at Tor Royal fell silent to resting explorers.

Ruby Ruby Ruby was our “Dog in the playground” or rather “Dog in camping field” (for those that know the poem) entertainment on Sunday morning. In between the stick throwing and belly rubbing for Ruby, pupils cooked breakfast and repacked their backpacks and tents. From there they were divided into three teams to further test their skills. Teams then proceeded to take the previous day’s distance tally of 28km to notch up a further 22km by first heading south to Peat Cot before heading east then north through Bellever Tor & Forest to Postbridge before heading further north to Fernworthy Reservoir. All teams completed what was an impressive 50km in total; just over 31 miles and only 4 miles short of the distance on the challenge.

All of our walks over the training period tactically pick up the checkpoints used in the Ten Tors event and the teams hopefully now have built up a 3D map in their mind of the moor.

We finally finished up with wishing Henry a happy birthday (albeit a day late) and made our way back to school for 5pm. So it was a long but successful weekend and regardless of team selection, everyone who joined us on the team’s weekend has demonstrated that they are capable of doing the distance of the event and we congratulate you all on your journey from novice to Dartmoor Professionals. It’s been a pleasure of all the staff to see your abilities build walk after walk, well done everyone.