Taking on the Ten Tors Challenge

King Edward’s School has a long history of successful completions of the annual Ten Tors Challenge, and last week’s 2019 event proved no exception.

As ever, we had three training weekends, the first at Llanddeusant in the Brecon Beacons. We had a successful day’s walk on the Saturday but absolutely foul conditions on the Sunday meant we had to evacuate teams off the mountains. At least they all got to see how bad weather can be on British hills! The Exmoor weekend was better, though cold windy conditions all weekend kept teams moving as the made their way along the coast path and up onto the moor. The camping was exceptionally cold, tough which kept many pupils in their sleeping bags on the campsite!

The final training weekend on Dartmoor is supposed to be a trial, and this year was no exception, with strong winds and heavy hail showers through the first day, and low cloud and rain on the second. However, the teams came through, and everyone made it to the finish.

The event itself was amazing, with two really strong teams. The weather was dry throughout, apart from a bit of rain during the evening before the teams set off, sunny, cold and clear, with excellent visibility.

Both teams made excellent progress across the moor on the first day of the expedition, navigating some long legs across the moor without a hitch to get within a short distance of their 8th tors. After a cold night, they were all off early again, and covered the final miles of their routes without incident. The 35-mile team finished strongly, even jogging sections towards the finish, completing the expedition just before 9:00am, an exceptional team performance. They were only the second team to complete Route N, and the next team on that route didn’t come in until nearly midday!

The 45-mile team camped on the open moor below Rough Tor, but were through their 8th checkpoint at 6:00am, and heading strongly back towards Okehampton on familiar ground. With the heat of the day and short of water, the going became tough, but they were at the finish just before 11:00am, the 4th team out of 15 to complete their route.

The teams were:

35 MILE TEAM

• Will Burwell (Team Leader)
• Harry Frith
• Phoebe Ritchie
• Barnaby Stephenson
• Tabby Gardiner
• Olivia Seaton

45 MILE TEAM

• Harry Smailes (Team Leader)
• Ally Darnton
• Tristan Hale
• Kalum Withey
• Duncan McAllister
• Finn Williams

Huge credit must go to all our wonderful students who showed excellent spirit and determination to complete this unique challenge. Well done to all of you! After 23 continuous years of managing teams for this event I think that you all certainly lived up to King Edward’s School’s finest traditions!

Massive thanks too, to all the staff who came out to support the training weekends and the expedition - Mrs Bateman, Mrs Lang, Mr Lang, Mr (music) Boden, Miss Fitzgerald, Miss Perris and Ms Nix. It would be impossible to train and manage the teams without their support.