Richard recently completed his All the Tors Challenge in one continuous round. Here’s what he has to say about it:
The weather improved throughout the week and by day 3 I had blazing sunshine for most of the rest of the daylight hours, dehydration becoming a big problem on several occasions as I traversed large stretches of the moor such as from Dartmeet up to Huccaby and across to Bellever without any easy water source since crossing the Dart. The nights were cold and sometimes wet, sometimes frosty.
I had some beautiful sunrises, saw many new born lambs, new born foals and some other wonderful wildlife – herons over Piles Copse was a particularly magical moment.
I got sick on day 7, bad stomach upset and dehydration and I was right in the middle of the moor at Cut Hill so that was a low point, but once I’d ticked off that day and got down to the South moor things sped up and the finish line was in sight. I intended to stay on the moor for 10 nights and duplicate Emily’ s experience, but after reading the All the Tors book and seeing that Emily wished she powered on and finished the stretch from Gutter to Kings in one day I woke up early and decided to give that a go and finished by climbing Kings Tor at 16:43 on the Thursday evening – just under 10 days after setting off! I made it back to Princetown and was collected by my parents at 1745! What an experience, and doubly so in that this is the first big expedition I have done since having a heart attack in 2021 – a real emotional moment for me finishing that last Tor. I could write about this for hours but I’ll stop here and leave the pain, joy, beauty of the moor, blood, sweat and tears to your imagination.
What a challenge, I will treasure the memory forever!