‘TEN TORS’
CELEBRATES 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Daniel Sergeant, 15, of Whitchurch, has sent us this action shot of members of his Ten Tors team from Tavistock College on a training session for the 35 mile hike across Dartmoor. The photo captures the team fording a stream as they approach the steep climb onto Steeperton Tor. The final destination is Okehampton camp, where the army are on hand to organise and supervise the event which is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year.
Over the week-end of 8th to 9th
May, up to 400 teams of 6 teenagers will arrive to undertake the challenge of trekking for 35, 45 or 55 miles, climbing ten tors, spending a night under canvas in the wilderness and contending with bogs, blisters and often extreme weather conditions. The teams will be self-sufficient, carrying everything they need to survive two days on the Moor.
Survival forms a very real part of the challenge. In 1998 temperatures were in the eighties (26º C) throughout the Event, and dehydration was a major risk. In May 1996 Dartmoor was struck by a snow and sleet storm over Ten Tors weekend. The teams had poor visibility and numbing cold to contend with, and 2100 of 2400 participants were evacuated from the Moor in some of the most extreme weather seen by Dartmoor in any spring. That year Moor Group HQ at Okehampton, supervised by the British Army, were responsible for coordinating the successful mass evacuation of the teams, following requests
from Tor Party Commanders to do so. The RN helicopters played a crucial role, particularly on Kitty Tor, in some unspeakable conditions even for them.
Support contingents from the
Royal Navy and Royal Air Force man the Tors throughout the Event and, together with the Dartmoor Rescue Group, play a crucial role in overseeing the participants and ensuring that
none come to lasting harm. Thanks are due to the officers, men and women of the Armed Services and to all the support groups, who make the organisation and execution of Ten Tors appear stunningly easy, and who provide the essential safety-net.
But congratulations and considerable admiration are due to the four hundred Teams who accept the Challenge!
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