When participants in the 2007 Ten Tors were pulled off Dartmoor in diabolical weather conditions, is the event really so tough? Absolutely, says Margery Jennings.

Pat gave me a steely look and pronounced,“We’re not fair weather walkers”.

I rather wanted to point out that I am but something in her glare silenced me. If I was going out with a Ten Tors Team, now was not the time to cough to being a wimp.

Ten Tors – two short words that describe one of the toughest youth activities in the country. A test of endurance, navigational skills and team work in southern England’s last great wilderness: Dartmoor.

The actual ten Tors event takes place every year over a weekend in early May. Training occupies most weekends for the previous six months. Pat has trained Ten Tors teams for twenty years. It's her job to take kids more accustomed to video games than the great outdoors and give them stamina and confidence.

Curling tongs

“One girl turned up for her first camping trip with some battery powered curling tongs,” she says. “She soon learned they weren’t much use.”

The teams’ objective sounds simple enough. Visit ten tors on Dartmoor. It’s not until you're out on the moor that you begin to understand the true nature of the challenge.

A tor is a large granite outcrop sticking up above the surrounding moorland. Many are at over 1000ft - anywhere else they'd be called mountains - so getting to the top of them is in itself a physical challenge. Getting between them is even harder. A walk in the park it is not.

With no roads to help you out, keeping a check on your exact position and correctly getting from one tor to another using a map and compass is serious challenge. It’s not always sunny. Thick fog can descend on the moor, meaning that teams have to know how to fix a course and stick to it when they can see barely 3 metres in front of them.

Hound of the Baskervilles

Then there is the minor issue of the bogs. Remember The Hound of the Baskervilles? The baddie comes to a sticky end in Grimpen Mire. Dartmoor is wet. Your route between tors may be short as the crow flies but with a bog in the way, you have 2 choices – wet feet or a long detour. Most people choose wet feet but bogs can get very deep. When the ground for 4 metres on either side of you wobbles when you step on it, you must read the warning signs and back track – otherwise you’ll start sinking.

On the night before the event, teams gather just outside Okehampton to collect their route. Tens Tors comes in 3 distances. 35 miles, 45 miles and 55 miles, depending on the age of the teams, to be covered over 2 days. Each team is given a different set of ten tors – so there’s no chance of playing follow my leader. Teams must be fully independent: they must carry tents, provisions, a stove, wet weather gear and so on. A heavy back pack for an adult – and some of these kids are only 14.

They camp on the moor and start at first light the next day. Family and friends gather at the start line to wave them off. Before them lie 2 gruelling days, both for the teams and for the families. The teams have a job to do. All the families can do is wait anxiously for news.

Sink or swim

Some years, the weather smiles on them. Others, they have to contend with torrential rain and swollen rivers that can be forded only by wading though water up to their waists. Sometimes, even in May, it snows. They risk broken ankles; sun burn; hypothermia.

This is a team event. Everyone must get round, so if someone is unwell or struggling, the rest of the team must carry their kit as well as their own to help them. Teams are checked in at each tor. If they clearly can’t cope they will be made to pull out. Many teams do not make the distance. For them there is the disappointment of defeat after months of training. Those that do get round have completed a challenge they can be proud of for the rest of their lives.

Four simple words:  “I did Ten Tors.”

Now when you hear someone say this you’ll know what to say:

“Wow! That’s amazing!”