”Tough and Tiring” Ten Tors
Ten Tors is an annual challenge to the teenagers of the South West of England, hosted on Dartmoor. 400 Teams of six take on hikes of up to 55 miles over a single weekend. This year St Bart’s had two teams taking on the 25 and 45-mile challenges. Here they tell us more about the experience…
The Ten Tors Challenge was an amazing experience. We spent 9-10 May participating in the two-day expedition, which involved navigating independently through North Dartmoor. However, this all started six months ago, when we started training for the expedition by undertaking practice walks every month in and around West Berkshire, before completing two days training on Dartmoor in April, after which the final teams were selected.
Fast-forward to Friday 9 May, the day before the challenge. We arrived at the campsite, excited and ready. After looking through the final plans and routes, we wandered up to the main square where we found ourselves participating in the army’s different strength and reaction stalls and experiencing a range of military equipment. In the background, the Army band played instrumental songs like Espresso and Descpacito, making sure everyone was excited and relaxed before the big weekend.
On Saturday morning, music echoed through the campsite to try and make the 5.00am wake up a bit easier. At the start line, the Army Red Devils put on an impressive parachute display, with eight paratroopers descending through the sky amid coloured smoke. One even carried a massive Great Britain flag trailing from the ankle, adding to the spectacle and anticipation. The start of the event was marked by the sound of a cannon and just like that the 35 and 45-mile teams headed off across the moor.
Thoughts from the 35 mile team:
It was an amazing two days, but it was tough and tiring. We set a great pace all day on Saturday (driven on by Chris!) to pass our 7th Tor before we camped. By the time we reached the last checkpoint (DingerTor) on Sunday, we were full of adrenaline and ready to get on with it. It then started to pour down with rain, but that wasn’t stopping us. We put our sunglasses on and finished Ten Tors 2025 at 11:50am on Sunday 11 May, five hours ahead of the cut off time.
To all of us personally, our timing was a brilliant achievement as it showed that our resilience and determination had paid off. We were exhausted yet proud of our achievement!
We then waited at the finish to cheer the 45-mile team in. We all can’t wait to do 45 miles ourselves.
The drive back was just as fun—we stopped at the service station, enjoying Burger King and KFC, and arrived back at school just before 10:00
From the 45s:
Despite it being a really challenging couple of days of walking we had an amazing time; we made some memories that we will never forget and built really good friendships that we never would have made in school. It was both mentally and physically really challenging for all of us but we completed the challenge smiling and laughing all the way.
Having had a great Saturday, meeting all our target times, a minor detour of three miles through bog and awful footing on Sunday eventually became something we could laugh at. Everyone gave it their all, shown by being hours behind schedule half way through the second day but catching up and finishing with time to spare at the end. The overwhelming relief for being done and the incredible happiness that we felt walking over the finish line is a feeling we’ll never forget. In the words of one team member “that is the hardest thing I have ever done”, but that is how memories of our best moments are made.
Final thoughts:
Overall, we all agree this was an amazing experience and it couldn’t have happened without all the wonderful teachers’ and family support.
Alex, Pippa, Millie, Lucas, Chris, Orlaith (Year 10)
Isaac, Kathryn, Jack, Dylan, Alex, Adam (Year 12)
