This weekend thousands of teenagers from schools, colleges, youth clubs and military cadet organisations from across the South West of England will be arriving at Okehampton Battle Camp on the northern edge of Dartmoor to take part in the Ten Tors challenge.
Organised by the Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy with the support of organisations such as the Dartmoor Rescue Group, Devon & Cornwall Constabulary and other groups thousands of teenagers will be walking to ten different Tors over Saturday and Sunday in groups of six.
Ten Tors first started in the 1970's as a challenge to test the participants ability in navigation, hiking and camping over 35,45 or 55 miles of open moorland visiting ten Tors during Saturday and Sunday. While the organisers clearly state it is not a contest many, if not all, of the groups treat it as a contest to be the first across the finish line while also wanting to beat certain other teams. A good example of this is between Okehampton College and 2443 Sqn (Okehampton) Air Training Corps. I had the honour of being in the latter team during my teenage years.
Initially the challenge was open to groups of six teenagers from anywhere with many teams coming from all corners of the United Kingdom as well as a few from countries such as the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. In 2012 the organisers had to limit admission to teams from just the South West region of England due to the vast numbers of people wanting to be involved.
For the successful team members who cross the finish line by 17:00 Sunday there is a certificate and medal to honour their achievement while for those who sadly did not complete the challenge there is always next year.
Sadly the host town, Okehampton, does not take full advantage of the thousands of teenagers and their supporting friends and family let alone the media to really promote the town. The reason for this remains a complete enigma.
To all those taking part in 2014 I wish you the very best of luck.
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