Ten Tors Challenge

The Ten Tors Challenge is a two-day expedition across Dartmoor for teams of six young people. Each team plans and walks a route through ten named tors, carrying its own food, shelter and navigation equipment, and has to finish within a set time. It is usually held on an early-May weekend, with teams starting at 7am on the Saturday and finishing by 5pm on the Sunday. It is run by the British Army and the event has been capped at 2,400 entrants since 1978.

The idea came in September 1959, when Army officers at Denbury Camp saw how much trainees from the Junior Leaders Regiment, Royal Corps of Signals, enjoyed a Dartmoor adventure exercise and asked why such activities should be limited to Army trainees. The first Ten Tors Expedition was held in 1960, from Haytor to Denbury Camp, for about 20 patrols of servicemen and one patrol of civilians. In 1961 patrol size was cut to six, and 156 patrols started. By 1965 more than 2,000 people entered, and in 1968 the start moved to Okehampton.

There are three distances by age group: 35 miles (56 km) for ages 14 to 15, 45 miles (72 km) for 16 to 17, and 55 miles (89 km) for 18 to 19. Sussex Police Cadets were the first girls' team to complete the 45-mile route, in 1975. Mixed teams of three boys and three girls were allowed from 1984, and teams of any mix from 1988. Since 2012 only teams from the South West have been eligible.

The event has been cut short by weather more than once: it was abandoned in 1996 in heavy snow and in 2007 because of flooding, and it was cancelled in 2001 (foot and mouth disease) and 2020 (the coronavirus pandemic). The Dartmoor Rescue Group has provided safety cover since 1970. A separate one-day Jubilee Challenge, started in 1977, is for young people with physical or learning difficulties, and the organisers also run a Dartmoor Granite Challenge. The 50th anniversary was in 2010.

Paul Harris, who runs Our Dartmoor, first took part as a teenager while at Devonport High School in the mid-1980s, and says it was where his Dartmoor started. The photographs on this page are his own, including the medals.