Ten Tors gets under way

11:02am Saturday 10th May 2008

HUNDREDS of young people from across Devon are taking part in the annual two-day Ten Tors walk over Dartmoor this weekend.

Up to 2,400 youngsters are taking up the challenge which was abandoned half-way through last year because of heavy rain.

The Army began escorting hundreds of teenagers off the moor at first light on the Sunday morning with Sea King helicopters from RNAS Yeovilton joining the operation.

Among those involved were team-mates of a teenage girl who died training for the event, now in its 47th year.

Charlotte Shaw, 14, from Edgehill College, north Devon, died in March after falling into a swollen stream.

The 400 teams of six young people on the moor range in age from 14 to 20 and compete on 35, 45 and 55-mile routes.

The challenge began this morning from an area of flat land next to Anthony Stile, close to Okehampton Camp on the northern edge of Dartmoor. Teams stand in a semi-circle and set off when a cannon fires. They have 34 hours to visit each of the ten tors on their route in the correct order.

In 1996 the event was struck by a heavy snow storm - leaving some teams on the moor a day after the event was supposed to have finished - while just two years later, .temperatures reached 26 degrees.

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