Bagging the Big One

My first UK Mountain

Today was the high point of my trip as I bagged not one mountain but two. High Willhays (2038ft) and Yes Tor (2030ft) qualify as mountains by being over 2000ft. I decided to take advantage of the benign weather as the forecast for the rest of the week isn't good. There was plenty of blue sky and high white cloud with excellent visibility.

Dartmoor is a fairly trackless place and most of the sign posts say helpful things like "To the Moors" which I think most of us could work out. I needed all my map reading skills and the GPS to find High Willhays as it's hidden from view most of the way.

I followed the valley of the West Okement river towards Black Tor, a pretty impressive collection of flat rocks until I came to Blackator Copse (full of ancient oaks) when I had to start going up a very steep gradient. I was looking forward to enjoying the view in splendid isolation but I arrived at the same time as a load of ramblers.

From here I got my first view of High Willhays, a rounded bump about a mile a way. It was very deceptive as the gradient didn't look too strenuous but it didn't stop going up for that mile. Walking on Dartmoor is not particularly pleasant as there are no well defined tracks, and it can be very boggy/rocky. You also have to avoid cows and unexploded ordinance (only the former in my case).

On top of High Willhays it was very, very windy and cold, so I couldn't flourish the map to pinpoint all the other hills and I didn't hang about admiring the view. You could see a very long way in all directions. I went on to Yes Tor, which was a bit more impressive and then had to work out how to get off the hill. After a slight hiccup I was able to re-orientate myself and work out the lie of the land and headed off to the Meldon resevoir and cycleway back to Archie.

This walk lasted over five hours and went on for eight and half miles and was pretty challenging. You need to able to read maps and understand the geography. Dartmoor is an unforgiving place and I was very lucky to find it on such a quiet day, weather wise. You need to have a bit faith in yourself too.

For a fat, fifty-year old who's been living on a diet on cream teas, I didn't do too bad.