Ten Tors 2012 - The Event

On the 11th, 12th and 13th of may was the ten tors challenge 2012.
In the weeks leading up to the event, despite the 45 mile team being 2 people short, Mr Brewer convinced Will and Chris (2 of the people who completed 55 miles the year before) to do 45 mile with us.
We arrived at bear flat and departed at about 7:10, we then went to Oakhampton. We had a brief stop at Exeter services and then arrived at the army base at around 10:00.
When we arrived we quickly unloaded all out kit from the coach and went through 'tent city' to where the three beechen cliff flags were - looking better than all the others!
There we met Mr Brewer, Mr Stewart and the teachers from castle school, Mr Sayers had travelled in the coach with us. We then waited in the tent for about an hour while the 35 teams sorted out their kit for scrutineering. When the 35's were done, we spoke to Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart, before headed up to the scrutineering shed. The queue wasn't very long and, despite a paper airplane fight breaking out, we were seen by one of the scrutineers quite quickly. When we reached the scruitineer he said that we didn't have enough food, despite us telling him that we were going to make our lunches later so that they were more fresh, he refused to pass us until he had seen them, so Mr Stewart had to send someone back to our camp area to borrow some peoples sandwiches, so we could pretend they were ours.
After we got scruitineering stamped on our route card, we dumped our kit at our 'base' and went to the compulsory briefing where there was a massive queue because someone had fainted halfway through one of the earlier briefings, which had caused a major delay. As a result of this, the army were cramming the briefing room with as many people that they could physically fit in there. During the briefing they told us all the basic stuff - don't drop litter, motivation, etc.....
After getting briefing stamped as well we went back to our mess tent and planned our route, this didn't take very long and afterwards we went to where the people from BCS who were part of the Keynsham ATC have a look around.

We then had dinner which comprised of pasta which this year hadn't been left cooking all day because Mr Stewart wasn't cooking this time, with bolonaise followed by Apple pie and without the cold, straight out of the can custard which we got last year. Afterwards we had free time until bed at ten so we all chatted fpr a while before trying to get an early night, despite the parties going on around us.
The next morning I woke at 5:00am as over the camp tannoy came chariots of fire for us to wake up to. This was then followed by other inspirational music such as, we are the champions, these boots are made for walking, dancing queen? and many more. I then had lots of cereal for breakfast, because there wasn't a vegetarian alternative to the bacon butties. We then had our team photos, before putting on our bags and heading up to the start.

We took are place on the ring of participants and gave our flags to the teachers (we could see all our other teams because our flags were so much bigger and taller than everyone else's). We were a bit late to the top because there had been a backlog of people trying to get up to the start, so we were caught unawares as then two huge guns then went off and all hell broke loose. Everyone ran down the hill at once and it was absolute chaos. We quickly got on route and headed to our first tor. The map of our route can be seen below:

We made our way quickly to Hound tor by taking a road/track most of the way, going past the Jubilee challenge on the way. We then continued upwards and onwards, past Watern tor, following the wall round to our second tor - Sittaford, where Rob was given a replacement emit card (the computer chips they use to check where we are), because our old one has broken. We then headed down through a valley, a wood and over some giant stepping stones, before climbing up to Combestone tor - our third, were we saw the teachers from Castle school, including Mr Brewer's sister. We then went diagonally up to Ryders Hill, and then straight across to higher hartor, where on the way, we were waved at by the people in 'the small helicopter', which as a result, got it promoted to my 2nd favorite instead of by worst helicopter (below the zebra helicopter, and above the green sea king). Once we got to higher hartor, we were delayed because at Sittaford, they'd given us the wrong type of emit card, so we were forced to wait for about 15 minutes while they registered us with another one. We then headed straight down, following a noticeable path, to Trowlesworthy tor, before heading straight back up to higher hartor again. We then followed the yellow brick motorway up to South Hessary tor - number 6. We then raced on, hoping that we might reach Beardown tors (7) before the 8pm cut-off, meaning that we'd be allowed to go on to our 8th. We went very quickly through Princetown, but came to the conclusion that we weren't going to make it, so slowed right down and took a leisurely walk up to Beardown tors where the temperature quickly started to drop. We put our tents up and ate as quickly as possible before setting our alarms and going to bed.

The next morning we woke up at around four. We got our stuff all ready inside our tents, and then (stupidly) decided not to have breakfast. We left the tents up for as long as possible as there was a significant wind chill, and it was cold enough the the ground was frosty. After we'd put the tents down, the military people who were in charge of the tor made us all stand around a square outside their check in tent. They then handed out all the 35's routes cards and at exactly 6:00am, the person in charge of the tor blew his whistle and Rob (who was our team leader) ran to the checkpoint to get our route card (45 and 55's don't get theirs handed out).

We then headed off, along with most of the other teams, down and across a small valley, and up to our 8th tor - Lynch tor. From there we headed down to a river crossing which we had used on previous training sessions, and then straight up to Kitty tor (9) - this is where we suffered the most because of not eating breakfast, and we slowed right down, however after having some food we soon got back up to speed. At Kitty we had a nice chat for the army people for a few minutes. We then headed along a well made track - which we've also used numerous times before in training - which took us round to our tenth tor - Sourton. From there, we went down a really steep path into the valley, and up the other side, before heading underneath Yes tor, and joining one of the paths that leads into the camps where we met Mr Stewart and some of the other teachers, who gave us the school flag - which I carried - and a union flag.

We then walked 'the walk of fame' down into Oakampton camp and completed the challenge at 12:10am!

Ten Tors Training - Dartmoor 2

On the 23rd, 24th and 25th, we had our second (and for people doing DofE, our last) training session of the year.

We met after school on Friday and loaded the mini buses before leaving for Dartmoor. We spent the journey listening to U2's Glastonbury set-list and stopped at the 'ten tors (Exeter) services' for dinner. We then drove down to the  community hall in south zeal. We unpacked all our kit and then went to bed after looking after the dogs while the teachers went out (and cleaning up after them when they decided the floor would make a good toilet. 

The next morning we woke up and packed all our stuff up, and ate breakfast before driving to Okehampton army base. We headed off after meeting some of the teachers from Norton Radstock school who would be working with us and castle school to check us in so that there were enough teachers to support us on the moor. We quickly followed the tracks around the army base, to our first checkpoint - yes tor. After that, we headed down to the same river crossing that we did on the previous training session where we met Mr Brewer's Dad. From yes tor and the river crossing, we then followed the same route as on the previous training to Sourton tor, then following a track to Kitty tor, and from there, south to another river crossing. We then went away from our old route, and crossed over the river and went to Lynch tor, we we met Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart.

After a brief break, we went across from the west to the east of the moor to Beardown tors, and then back again to Great Mis tor. Afterwards we went down to yellowmeade farm, where we crossed over the road and followed the track over to Black tor where we were camping for the night. Once there we put up our tents and cooked, before filling up with water and going to bed at about 8pm.

The next morning I got up at 4am, while it was still pitch black out side. After packing away all our kit from the night, we got out of the tent and cooked our breakfasts before taking the tents down, and leaving just before 6am. We followed the Devonport leat along to Eyelsbarrow, where we met Mr Brewer's sister who we chatted too for a while, whilst Mr Brewer was telling her what to tell us through their long ranch radio.
We then headed off down to higher white tor, and from there, we walked across the moorland to redlake, which is right next to a large 'rock' which from a distance looks just like a volcano. We had quite a long stop there as it had been a long stretch to get there, and we had another long stretch to go. We then went on to Pupers Hill, where we met Mr Brewer's dad, before heading on to the cairns, and from there to Ryder's Hill. After that we went on to our final checkpoint - some more cairns, before following a footpath (on which I managed to walk straight into a tree), down off the moor to the car park where the over teams were ready to go.

Ten Tors Training - Dartmoor 1

Over the weekend, we did our first ten tors training weekend on Dartmoor of the year. Despite there being a lot of interest for 45 (the mileage I am 'applying' for this year) there was a maths GCSE on the Monday after which didn't involve me, but did involve most people meaning that there were only 4 of us in our team.

We met after school on Friday, and after loading our kit into the mini buses (and fixing a broken window), we drove down. On the way we stopped at the 'Ten Tors service station' (Exeter), and had burger king for dinner before driving down to south zeal. We were staying in the community hall there.
After we had unpacked every out of the minibuses, we did a kit check, before planning our routes for the weekend. We then had drinks and biscuits before going to bed at around 11pm.

The next morning we had a slightly more relaxed start to last year, when we had to be up at 4am and ready to go at 4.20am! This year we woke up at around 6am, and leisurely packed up our kit and had breakfast. Mr Stewart than spent about half an hour explaining to one of the 35 teams, that they had taken too many tents, and repacking their bags for them before we loading into the minibuses, and drove to Okehampton.
Once we got to Okehampton, Mr Stewart gave the 35's a tour of the base while we walked up to the start point with Mr Brewer.

We then headed off, starting with Roos tor, which is right by the army base. We then walked along one of the military tracks to East Mill tor, where one of the teams from castle tor (Beechen Cliff sometimes train with them as Mr Brewer's sister teaches there) went in completely the wrong direction.
From East Mill tor, we walked in a direct straight line over the moorland to Yes tor. When we went around to the other side of Yes tor, we were almost blown off our feet by the incredible change in the strength of the wind. We started to walk away from Yes tor, but soon it started to rain, so we stopped to get on water proof trousers etc... We then set off again and it started to hail before we went down a very steep drop, over a river, and up the steep other side to Sourton tor. We then took a path which led us past Gren tor, and up the Kitty tor. Once there, we met a lot of the teachers, and had some food for lunch. We then went a few hundred meters before having to stop while Sam sorted out his shoe. In this time, a team from Millfield came over to us, and when I looked at their map for them, I realised that they were on completely the wrong side of the moor! After I had pointed them in the right direction, we went down to a river crossing where we met Mr Brewer's brother. We then headed back up to Chat tor, before going across to Great Links tor which was our final tor of the day. We then headed down of the tor where we met Mr Brewer's sister, who showed us to a good place to camp. We then pitched up, ate dinner and went to bed at about 7pm.

The next morning, we had a lie in, and didn't have to wake up until 6am. As we were expecting, it was raining, but it wasn't very heavy. I quickly packed up my sleeping bag etc... and started to heat up our breakfast on our trangia. We then packed up our tents and went to the campsite where the teachers were for 8am. We were meant to be being driven back to Okehampton, so we could walk on the east moor, but due to lack of teachers in the misty and wet weather, our route was changed, so we started from where we finished the final day.
We started by walking up the steep slope that we had gone down the previous day. We went slightly too far to the left, and ended up at little links tor instead of great links tor. We then headed directly up to great links tor, from which we took a bearing down until we hit the path that we had taken the previous day. We took this path along to Sourton tor. Afterward we went back along the river crossing that we had done the day before. We then went directly over the moor (meeting the teachers halfway) to Okehampton camp, which was our finish point.
After that we drove back to school via the 'ten tors services'.

Ten Tors Training in The Black Mountains

We met at school at 7am on Saturday 4th February before driving to Abergavenny. Once we had arrived, it instantly started to snow. As a result of this, for safety, we decided to do the route backwards.

We started by leaving the town of Abergavenny and ascending sugar-loaf mountain. We then quickly descended and went across country to table-top mountain which we climbed before heading back to down in the now, much heavier snow to allow us time to get away before the roads became too frozen.