Dartmoor, North to South, a brief review and some thoughts

[yomperalex]

I had the opportunity, finally, this week to trek across Dartmoor. Me and a mate decided to do it in 2 days, Okehampton to Ivybridge.

Navigation was a serious issue, poor weather conditions rendered most fording points difficult to best avoided. I would definitely be more wary about planning a route depending on them.

First day we skirted across the edge of Okehampton training area. Ended up navigating mostly peak to peak. Strenuous going, but reliable and simple.

Second day onto the southern half, after a few pints in Postbridge (nice folk there) and a brief walk to bivi on the moors, and our route was much more bases on footpaths. However these were poorly maintained, really indistinct and most of the time just not there.

This caused a lot of self doubts about navigation skills, and an awful lot of time and energy was wasted looking for them. With the day getting on and the prospect of an unplanned 2nd night out looming, we opted to just head due South to hit the A38.

This took in a lot of really difficult terrain, some of the hardest I've walked. Utterly knackered, but finally arrived at Cornwood - another couple of pints waiting for our pickup - really nice folk there too.

Some of my thoughts on Dartmoor now include the idea of upscaling - a normal mile is like 3 or 4 on the moor, and no longer takes 15 mins but half hour (or more). You will cover more land than planned as the moor throws itself on you.

It really is interesting going off piste but it can really test you physically and demands some good dead reckoning skills - so to save for a more sedate bimble next time.

Trying to keep pack weight down I have rediscovered my love of the old hexi burner. And Sainsbury are doing some great ready meals at 2 quid a pop, tasty too.

All in all an arduous time, but great fun and saw some wonderful scenery. And what is best is that we raised over £400 for the Macmillan Nurses and my wife has agreed to let me buy a Berghaus Vulcan.

Result.

Alex

 

[SCOMAN]

I went light for my north to South and used a Hexi. The northern moor can be hard going as is the Nav I'd have to sit down and try to remember my route. My first night was on great mis tor(?) NW of Princeton. Once yr at Princeton the nav is easy to get to Ivybridge. I did enjoy walking and camping on the moor.

 

[Blaidd]

Excellent result for the charity! The moor is my favourite place in the UK (along with Bodmin Moor). Thanks for posting.

 

[cranmere]

It's been a long time since I did the traverse and I was lazy and stayed overnight at Postbridge. The north Moor is notoriously hard going. I learned that it just isn't worth trying to take short cuts, a lot of the tracks go the way they do to avoid wet stuff and are nearly always a lot quicker even if they look longer. I never have as much trouble navigating on the south Moor and once you're past Duck's Pool it becomes relatively easy, with that long (oh heck it's long) almost straight track all the way down.