Ten Tors is a very straightforward proposition.

Think of a marathon - you'd need to cover 26 and a bit miles.  You'd need to be fit, and marathons are on roads, mostly.

But Ten Tors adds another ten miles - or, if you're up for it, another twenty miles.  Or, if you're insane, almost thirty miles to that original twenty-six.  Tough enough?

Now add the requirement that you stop, cook and eat at least two meals on your route - and that you sleep out overnight and carry everything with you that you need to do all that - so add a tent, cooking gear, food, water and a sleeping bag to the stuff you're going to carry.  And forget the road - you'll do it over Dartmoor.  And Dartmoor can be cruel, so add wet- and cold-weather gear to that pair of running shorts you had in mind, and to that load you're going to cram into a rucksack.

And about the route - forget those neat painted lines to guide you.  You'll be told to visit Ten Tors specific to you that you have to check in at, and you'll be told which ones they are on the morning before you start.  So there's a bit of navigation, and Dartmoor's Tors tend to be at the top of its many hills...

The good news is you've got twenty four hours to cover the ground.  But that's a maximum.  (You'll be stopped for your overnight camp at eight pm, and you won't be allowed to start again before six.  If you don't get home before five on Sunday afternoon - you don't get home...).  And you'll do it as part of a Team of six - you'll get a certificate if all six of you finish, but you'll be pulled out if your Team drops below four.

And you don't have to run, the objective is to finish - Ten Tors isn't a race!


The truly astonishing thing is that you - two thousand four hundred of you, every year for the last fifty years - volunteer, ask, want and even demand to do this!!

And the more incredible thing is that you're too old to enter if you're twenty.


Ten Tors is the toughest Challenge there is, and you want to do it for the same reason people climb mountains, for the same reason people sail around the world - not to be the first, not even to be the fastest or the best;  you need to see if you can do it.  It's not about the mountain, or the sea, or even Dartmoor - it's about you, five mates, and whether you've got the drive, spirit and determination to keep going no matter what's thrown at you on the way.   One man put it a whole lot more succinctly than I can: