| "What is Ten Tors?" | In 1959 three Army officers felt that Dartmoor would
provide a challenge for civilians as well as soldiers, and
Ten Tors was conceived. (See: 'The Challenge').
The Ten Tors organising committee now sponsors two
events annually, the Ten Tors Challenge and the Jubilee
Challenge. For Ten Tors, each team must walk
one of 26 specified routes over the formidable wild
country of Dartmoor between ten nominated tors over two
days. Distances of 35, 45 or 55 miles are covered
depending on the age of the teams. (See: 'The Charter') |
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| "Who makes Ten Tors happen? |
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| "Who can enter Ten Tors?" | Ten Tors is open to teams of six, in any male/female combination - aged between 14 and 19 - from schools, youth organisations (Scouts, Guides, Youth Clubs) and Service cadets based in the 7 Counties in South West England. (See: 'The Rules') | ||
| "When do
entrants have to be the qualifying age?" |
Entrants must meet the age requirement for
their chosen distance in the August of the year of the
Event. The age requirements are:
(17 year olds must have previously completed a 45 mile route before they are eligible for the 55 mile route, and teams may be composed of males and females in any combination) |
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| "How can I get into a Ten Tors team?" | You need to approach your school or club for a place in their team. Applications for team entries will be made by them. Ten Tors is however very popular, and each year hundreds more applications for team places are made than the 400 that can be accepted. | ||
| "How can my organisation apply?" | By registering interest with the Ten Tors Secretary by mid-July of the previous year. This action places the organisation on the mailing list, but does not guarantee places. (See "When are the teams selected?", and the 'Contacts' page) | ||
| "Why is there a 400-team limit?" | Dartmoor is a unique place, and it would be destroyed by over-use of any kind. There are many competing demands for its space, habitat, food, minerals, etc... It exists in a critical balance which is under constant review. The 400-team limit was agreed partly to help maintain that balance, partly to limit the demands on the event organisation, and partly to retain one crucial aspect of Ten Tors - that teams should as far as possible be alone on the Moor, and rely on their own resources to meet the challenges it raises. | ||
| "Can I enter Ten Tors as an individual" | No. See "Who can enter Ten Tors?" above. | ||
| "When are the teams selected?" | The organiser's selection committee now meets in September each year, and will normally advise organisations of the result of their application by letter during that month. The list of successful entries will be published on this web site as soon as possible after that time. | ||
| "When is Ten Tors?" | Ten Tors usually takes place on the second weekend of May each year. This may vary, depending on other events and constraints. | ||
| "When are teams told the route they're on?" | The assignment of Teams to Routes is made public at 10:00 on the Friday before Ten Tors weekend, as the teams register at Okehampton Camp. Teams will be advised at that time, and that information will appear on this web site, as close to 10:00 as possible. | ||
| "What
is the Ten Tors prayer?" |
The Ten Tors prayer was
first intoned at the second ever event, in 1961 at the
then start at Denbury Camp. According to
painstaking research by the Ten Tors archivist, Alan
Stephens, it has been twice reworded over the
intervening years, but Alan's work has uncovered the
original, which is:
"O God, who has made
the earth of great beauty
and instilled in man a spirit for adventure, we thank you for the beauty of nature for the courage and vigour of youth for companionship and for the opportunity to enjoy these gifts Go, we pray, with all who are setting out on this great venture among the tors of a unique and ancient moorland. Grant that, by meeting each challenge and difficulty with honest endeavour and unselfish courage they may find a spirit of determination and true comradeship that will benefit themselves and those about them both now and in the future." Amen
The version used at
later events, until the original was rediscovered
and used for the start of the fiftieth anniversary
of Ten Tors in 2010, is
"O God who has made the Earth of great beauty, and who has given us the Spirit of Adventure, we thank you for the beauty of the world, for the courage and vigour of young people, for the companionship and for the opportunity to enjoy all these gifts. We pray that you will keep them safe on this great venture and grant that they may meet each challenge and difficulty with unselfish courage and so find the true spirit of comradship as shown to us by Jesus Christ, our Lord." Amen
(from the Ten Tors Event
programme, and with grateful thanks to Alan Stephens)
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| "What is the Jubilee Challenge?" | The Jubilee Challenge is a one day event for less able-bodied youngsters who must cover one of four distances of up to 15 miles on foot or by wheelchair. This event is open to teams or individuals. (See: 'The Charter') |
| "Who can enter the Jubilee Challenge?" | Participation in the Jubilee Challenge is limited to about 200. Registered schools and organisations may enter individuals or Teams of Six. Each Team or individual is accompanied by escorts provided by the University of Exeter Training Corps. (See: 'The Challenge!') |
| "How can I enter the Jubilee Challenge?" | By registering interest with the Ten Tors Secretary by mid-July of the previous year. This action places the organisation on the mailing list, but does not guarantee places. (See the 'Contacts' page) |
| "When is the Jubilee Challenge?" | The Jubilee Challenge takes place on the Saturday of Ten Tors weekend. (See: "When is Ten Tors?" above). |
| "Where does the event take place?" | Both Ten Tors and the Jubilee Challenge start at Okehampton Army Camp, on the northern skirts of Dartmoor. They then head off following their allotted routes over the moor. |
| "Can I find a place in a team through the web site?" | No. You should approach your school or club for a place in their team. The Ten Tors event organisers - 43 (Wessex) - ensure that each organisation which successfully gains a team place for the event has team managers and trainers who are familiar with the dangers and challenges that Dartmoor poses. They are charged with ensuring that their team members are trained to meet and overcome those problems. A web site can't do that. | ||
| "How can I get in touch with the Event Organisers?" | Go to the Contacts page... | ||
| "How can I find my team on the web site?" | Try the Help page... | ||
| "How can I find out about ... on the web site?" | Try the Site Search page. This uses a Google® search engine to scan every word on every page on the Ten Tors site. If it draws a blank, its not here. | ||
| "What do 'Fallouts & Status' mean on the Route cards?" | Try the Help page... | ||
| "So how does the
Ten Tors website work?" |
The site runs on a (distributed) web server in
the University of Exeter's
server bunker; this, for the many servers and
routers housed there, is air-conditioned, backed up by its
own generator and has two separate 10Gb fibre connections
linking it to the Internet. The public Ten Tors site is updated remotely throughout the year with information (forms, dates and notes relevant to the event) largely sourced by the Event organisers, particularly the Ten Tors Secretary, and with training photos and information supplied by the Teams themselves. As Ten Tors weekend draws close a website 'slave' machine is prepared with a complete, up-to-date copy of the website and shipped to Okehampton Camp, where it's connected to the MIS Event Control system on the one hand, and to a broadband link, connecting it to the public 'master' website, on the other. At 10:00 on the Friday of Ten Tors weekend the 'slave' machine is switched to active mode; once every ten minutes until ~17:30 on Sunday it will collect the set of twenty-six route cards prepared (on its own ten-minute cycle*) by the MIS system. From these the 'slave' prepares a set of complementary pages (the 'Allteams' page, the latest 'Team Update' list and a host of others). These new pages, together with the twenty-six route cards, are uploaded via the broadband link as part of the ten-minute cycle from Okehampton Camp to the 'master' public web site on the University of Exeter server. The 'Ten Tors Lite' and the other mobile sites are largely extracted from data in the latest 'Allteams' page by a process running on the 'master' web server. This process scans the 'Allteams' page 'on demand' for the particular information requested and prepares a smaller, bespoke page to send to the requesting mobile device. Over a typical Ten Tors weekend the website supplies 303.19 Gb of data to web clients, about 900,000 pages on Saturday, and * NB: This, ignoring any delays in transmitting the Team data from the Tor checkpoints, means there could be a delay of up to twenty minutes between a Team arriving at a Tor and its publication on the Ten Tors site. |
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| "What
does a Ten Tors Route look like to walk?" |
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| "Do you have any team statistics before 1998?" | No, I'm afraid not.
It is possible that they exist somewhere, on paper, but
the Ten Tors web site came into being shortly after Ten
Tors 1998. We have no access to data from previous
years - however, please go to the Denbury
Junior Leaders website: www.denburyjuniorleaders.com
click on PHOTO - FILES, where you will find copies of Ten
Tors Brochures 1960 to 1964 and files for each year 1950
to 1967. (Denbury junior Leaders are looking for
brochures for 1965/1966/1967 - copies would be appreciated
if anyone has them!) And we do have a first hand report from 1960, courtesy of Kyle Evans, who was there: "I noticed in FAQ someone asked about Stats,
your reply was there were no details prior to 1998.
I may
be of some help, however small an item.
I
lived my first 17 years in Brecon, Sth Wales, and joined
the Cubs and progressed through to the Scouts, hence I
got to know my way up and over the Brecon Beacons very
well, enjoyed every step.
In
1959 at 17 years old I joined the RAF Boy Entrants, and
did my training at Credenhill, Hereford. It is a
well know saying within the Armed Forces, Never
Volunteer for Anything.
One
day our drill instructor had a word with me, knowing all
about me prior to joining up.
It
seemed as though he was looking for Volunteers to go on
a Walk. To get off some Square Bashing, I volunteered
for the walk, along with 9 other Boys, The D.I. took us
out on training walks, and classes for map reading and
compass work, which I had learnt in Cubs and Scouts.
We
were eventually informed of the extent of the Walk.
Come
time our D.I. travelled down with us in the back of a
three tonner lorry, met up with all the other
participants of the Walk.
To cut
an ever growing long story, we did the Walk, slept out
overnight between 2 groundsheets, as a full team of ten
we completed the Ten Tors Walk, within the time limit,
in fact I think we were the last full complement of 10
to finish within the time limit.
We did not have specialist walking boots, just our everyday issue Square Bashing Boots, not even treated leather, just Spit and Polish. Took some cleaning when we got back to camp ready for the dailly parade we had during our 18 months training. All the equipment we had on the walk was provided by he RAF, my Scout gear had to be left at home, no civillian clothes on camp for the first year of training. I still have my medal we were given, but sorry to say I have lost my certificate with all the postings. I hope
this goes some way to fill the archives of the Ten Tors,
as I would not have missed it for anything, in fact I
have continued walking, only recently having to call
time as the wear and tear on my knees tells me enough is
enough."
Kyle
Evans.
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| "Where is the best place to watch Ten Tors?" | Undoubtedly Okehampton
Army Camp. The Ten Tors start at 07:00 on
Saturday is an amazing occasion while the finish
throughout Sunday is unmissable, from the first Team to
arrive at perhaps 08:00 to the sprinters determined to
beat the 17:00 deadline. The Jubilee Challenge
starts at 07:30 on Saturday and must finish by 18:00 that
day - and you'll see finishers coming home from 11:00,
hugely pleased with their achievements and with the
welcome they're receiving. The camp has plenty of car-park space, refreshments, and constant updates of team positions on the Moor. Plus you'll see the Teams come in throughout the day, to an incredible reception and hard-earned awards. If you're familiar with Moor walking the Navy, RAF and Army Tor parties welcome non-intrusive visitors - you can watch Teams as they walk in to the checkpoints, and you can applaud them on their journey. What you can not do is offer them any assistance or direction - and that includes food and drink - they will be disqualified if this happens. I have heard it said though that the Tor parties will accept the occasional morsel - purely in the interest of science, and good public relations, of course... If you can't get to Okehampton or Dartmoor, you can follow the Teams' progress on this web site. Not as good as being there, but the data tracking the teams is just as up-to-date. |
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| "Can supporters camp at Okehampton Camp?" | Supporters are not encouraged to use the Camp as a campsite as it is already terribly congested. There are plenty of hostels & campsites available in the area. The Team Managers have the details. | ||
| "What is the record for route...?" | I have no idea. You could check the data on the pages available here, but Ten Tors really isn't about records, and it isn't a race. It is about team-spirit, supporting your mates and testing yourself against one of the most challenging tracts of land in England - you are a hero when you enter. | ||
| "How are Teams timed and tracked along their routes?" | Until a few years ago tracking the Teams on
their routes relied entirely on the personnel at the Tor
checkpoints and control staff back at Okehampton
Camp. As Teams arrived at each manned Tor, their
personal record (carried by the Team leader) would be
dated, timed and stamped by the Tor party. This
information would be copied into the Tor's log of 'Teams
passed through', and this would then be communicated back
to Event Control for a central record of each of the
Teams' progress. How this was communicated is
another tale; some Tors used radio, others telephone, and
one used FAX... (and yes, there are wires to some of the
nearer Tors - any rumours that carrier-pigeons were ever
used are entirely fictional). This process was augmented in the mid 1990's by a computerised database at Event Control. The 'times-at-Tor' data was entered into this MIS system, which took on the task of checking the Teams' progress against what is reasonable and possible; if a Team failed to check in at their next Tor in good time, the MIS raises an alert, which instigates a manual search - first for missing data, but ultimately a physical search of the Moor for the Team, by helicopter, by scrutineers, and by members of the Dartmoor Rescue Group. This largely manual tracking system is still in place, and backs up the electronic process now in use to follow the Teams along the whole of their routes. Each Team carries a 'dongle', unique to them, which the Team leader offers to a reader at the Tor checkpoints. This reader sends an SMS message containing the Team's ID plus a timestamp directly back to the MIS system, which continues to monitor each Team's progress. Each Team also carries a GPS tracker, which sends a regular set of timed co-ordinates back to a separate monitoring system - should Event Control staff need to check at any time on a Team's location they have direct access to this information, making any required search of the Moor a somewhat more focused operation. Finally, if a Team hits an emergency, their tracker device includes a panic button which will immediately send an alert to Control staff with the time and location information. The 'Help..' page has a little more information on Teams and Times at Tors. |
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| "Which is the first Tor to be
reached by the Teams?" |
Oke Tor is the nearest to the start, about
3.6Km as the crow flies from Okehampton Camp.
35-mile Routes B, C, K and the 45-mile Route T visit it as
their first checkpoint, the Teams usually reaching it at a
little before 08:00. |
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| "Which Tor
is visited by most Teams?" |
Lynch has twenty of the twenty-six routes
passing through it, so it might see upwards of three
hundred Teams: all those on the twelve 35-mile
routes plus those on eight of the ten 45-mile
routes. None of the four 55-mile routes have it in
their set of checkpoints. |
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| "When will my Team reach their next Tor/Finish?" | ...pieces of string come in many lengths. The 'Ten Tors Calculator' may help give an idea of what's possible, but your Team will arrive in it's own good time. | ||
| "What is
the earliest a Team can walk in on Sunday?" |
There are a number of factors in play here -
but the quick answer is at about 07:40, and this was most
recently achieved by two Teams in 2010. The crucial
factors are the Event rules, which state that no Team may
pass its ninth Tor on day one of the Event, and therefore
how close each route's ninth Tor is to the finish on day
two. Two routes share the privilege of shortest
distance, but many other routes come close, and have
carried the first Team home. The major factors
determining when a Team will walk in is how Dartmoor and
its weather have treated them, and how much they want it! |
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| "How are the Stage Distances on the various Routes calculated?" | The Event organisers calculate them as direct crow-flights between the Tor checkpoints - no allowance is made for river crossings, marshes, steep hills, bird exclusion areas, etc. It's down to the Teams to decide (during the Friday route planning and before the 07:00 Saturday start) on the most efficient path between checkpoints, and that might involve walking a more level route, but a less direct one... it's up to them. | ||
| "What's
the time on Dartmoor now?" |
The time on the Ten Tors web server (fairly
close to Dartmoor) is here...
NB: this is NOT
the official Event time, which is held by the Ten Tors
control staff! 'Web Clock' with grateful
acknowledgements to Andrew Shearer
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| "Is Ten Tors available on my mobile?" | Yes. The Ten Tors Lite and WAP mobile sites have been completely redrafted to allow access from all WAP- and HTML-capable phones, so you will be able to see the progress of individual teams during the event using your mobile. Key in either: mobile.tentors.org.uk or wap.ex.ac.uk/tentors/ on your mobile's browser. For more details see the 'Ten Tors on Your Mobile' page. | ||
| "Is there
a Ten Tors App for my phone?" |
No, but Yes... Many phones will let you create a browser shortcut on your home screen (including the Ten Tors Lite URL) which will work just like an App - on an iPhone go to the URL then tap the + symbol below and select 'Add to Home Screen'. On Android, browse to the URL, create a bookmark, then in your list of bookmarks long-press on the Ten Tors Lite entry and select 'Add shortcut to Home'. On a Blackberry go to the site, hit the menu button and choose 'Add to Home Screen'. I'm told that Symbian phones allow a similar process... What you then have is an icon on your home screen which looks and behaves just like a Ten Tors App. But will there be an App? No. And there are a lot of reasons for this - Ten Tors is about tracking changes, even when it's not Ten Tors weekend. An app (a bunch of code on your phone) would need to regularly download all the latest data from the web site relating to where the Teams are in order to sort through it and show you the piece you're interested in - that's a load on the Ten Tors server and on your data allowance. (The Ten Tors web site is currently about 6.5 Gigabytes...) Then there would have to be versions of the App for different platforms (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc) and variations of them for different phone models, because they don't all work in quite the same way. A rather more sophisticated App, designed to run on all phone platforms and models, and which would download just the information you were interested in when you asked for it is of course possible - it's already been done; it's called a web browser... |
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| "Was Ten Tors 2001 really cancelled?" | Yes. The announcement was made on the 13-March-2001. Ten Tors 2002 went ahead as planned, after the FMD outbreak was contained and eradicated. | ||
| "Did
anyone finish Ten Tors 2007?" |
No. Ten Tors 2007 was stopped
at the end of the first day, after the directive had been
issued to hold all Teams at the next Tor they
reached. Dartmoor had seen rain for a week, then
Saturday added another bucketful - or two. By the
afternoon streams and rivers across the moor, fed by the
soaked ground, were full and flowing fast. The
routes of many Teams led them over stretches of
water which were impassable except by wide detour, or
across ground which was turning into mire. And
Sunday was threatening worse... For the first time in its history, although 400 Teams started Ten Tors, none finished. STATEMENT
FOLLOWING
DECISION TO END TEN TORS [2007] EARLY
"Due to deteriorating weather conditions, the decision was taken at 21.30 [...] by the organisers of the Ten Tors Challenge to end the event early. "Our priority is to ensure all the people involved are as safe as possible. The weather forecast indicates that the rivers, which are already at their peak, will become increasingly swollen. "All participants will remain where they are currently camped - safe and with shelter and food. They will be moved off the Moor in an orderly and controlled manner [throughout Sunday]." Ten Tors 2007 is the stuff of legend. Offers of help, transport, a warm shower and a bed came in from all corners of Dartmoor. Some Teams were hosted by Commandos just back from duty in Afghanistan - every Team member on the moor on Saturday evening was transported back to Okehampton Camp during Sunday and received their pasty, and their bronze, silver or gold medal. A number of Teams handed their medals over to their managers and accepted them only after walking their routes in full over one of the following weekends. It is not recorded whether the same was true of the pasties... |
If your question doesn't have an answer here, and you feel it could, email it to:
Dave
Cannon
3-April-2012
