Dartmoor Tor Bagging around Haytor

12 November 2020

The forecast was for a dry but cloudy day as I set off on my third tor bagging trip. The area around Haytor Rocks is popular but a weekday in November during lockdown (driving to exercise permitted) seemed unlikely to be too busy. I was parked safely in the more northerly of the two car parks near Saddle Tor and fully clothed in my walking gear with my Satmap set up by 09:00. I could see that there were walkers on the moor but not too many and there was only one other car in the small car park.

My route was planned to visit up to nineteen tors but I only had 7.5 hours to do it before darkness. However there were various options to cut it short if necessary. Visibility was good and remained good all day. I notched up the very obvious Saddle Tor and then Emsworthy Rocks within the first thirty minutes, spotting a rather bedraggled foal sheltering behind a big rocky outcrop at Emsworthy. The mother was munching on vegetation a few yards away. It was a stiff climb up to Haytor Rocks – last time I had been there it had been summer a few years ago but blowing a gale and very cold as I tackled the infamous Haytor Heller Race. Today, the weather was much better and I had the tor to myself.

I could see an obvious tor in the middle distance and headed for it, crossing some interesting stone tramway tracks near their junction. I wasn’t concentrating on my map or compass bearing so, when I arrived, discovered that I was at Smallacombe Rocks rather than at Holwell Tor. I considered omitting Holwell Tor, but then I would need to walk back here another day to “bag” it. Hence I diverted over, crossing the disused tramway further up its course. From Holwell Tor, I touched on Smallacombe Rocks once more before making for Hole Rock and Leighon Tor, both of which were off the path.

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From Leighon Tor, I made my way to the track down to Leighon and then on to a footpath followed by a narrow lane past Southcott and to Hayne Cross. Rain threatened but the shower passed. I saw a rainbow segment. As I was climbing on to Hayne Down, there was a further heavy squally shower. The look of the sky suggested it wouldn’t blow over quickly. Having reached the vantage point of Bowerman’s Nose, I decided to put on waterproofs but not including trousers. By the time I had struggled with this in the wind, it had virtually stopped raining of course! It had taken me over an hour from Leighon Tor and no tors between. However Hayne Tor Rocks were only another ten minutes away.

After Hayne Tor Rocks, I was off any path, crossing uneven tussocky and boggy ground to reach an unfenced road which I crossed to reach Cripdon Down. On Cripdon Down, I was also off a path. There was an area of charred gorse and my trousers became black as I walking through this. I spotted the obvious tor (unmarked on the map). There was also a prominent outcrop of stones between the summit and the road. However they weren’t at the grid reference I was aiming for. Reaching it was made more difficult by some cattle in the way. However I managed to find a circuit round the herd, keeping my distance and then ate my lunch with the stones affording some shelter from the cold wind.

My next objective was Hound Tor. The best route to get there to avoid fields without any rights of way across them, was to walk to the minor road to the west of the Down and then head in a southerly direction along the road.

The road wasn’t busy. Near Jay’s Grave, a farmer was trying to get his sheep off the moor. Sadly a little bright yellow car was parked obstructing his access. He asked me if it was mine as I walked briskly towards it. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for me as I avoided his appropriate displeasure) my car was parked a few miles away in an official marked car park. Just along from Jay’s Grave, a further three cars were parked on the verge. Presumably the cars belong to walkers. Given there’s a nice surfaced free car park about a kilometre away along the road, I’m not sure why they park at the side of a narrow road – they shouldn’t mind the minimal extra walking!

Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of people around Hound Tor. As I climbed up the path to the summit, I saw more people than I had seen all day. A couple had even climbed on the rocks and were embracing each other from their vantage point. Having taken the obligatory photo of the tor I moved off to Greator Rocks, following some dog walkers who headed towards the mediaeval village. I branched off in the other direction and was soon at Greator, where I was the only person.

From there I made my way towards Holwell Lawn, in order to reach Holwell Rocks. These aren’t marked on the map and, unfortunately, I had plotted the point wrongly. After passing a large group of Dartmoor ponies, I found myself in the middle of the pony club arena without a tor in sight. I climbed over a gate onto the road, having given up my search. I was proceeding to the next group of earmarked tors on my route, aware that time to darkness would make it hard to complete my planned route. However as I walked, I saw a tor off to the left on the moor. Having found the access gate I made my way there over the waterlogged, squelchy ground. This turned out to be the previously elusive Holwell Rocks – I had been looking in the wrong place. From the rocks, there were excellent views over to Haytor, where I had been at the beginning of the day and towards Hound Tor as well as to Chinkwell Tor which is off route today but doubtless an objective for another day. Sadly there was no time to linger at this otherwise deserted and seemingly ignored tor which isn’t even marked on the Ordnance Survey map.

I retraced my steps – well actually headed back to the gate on a different but just as squelchy line across the pathless terrain. I proceeded on down the lane, to the T junction on the busier road between Haytor and Widecombe in the Moor. I crossed over and scrambled on to the unfenced moor making a bee line across vegetation clad ground towards the prominent path from the car park to Top Tor. I was at Top Tor twenty five minutes after leaving Holwell Rocks. As I took a quick photo, I noticed a pink and purple plastic box – must be one of the Dartmoor letter boxes. However I didn’t investigate it – perhaps letter boxing or geo-caching will be a project one day, but for the moment I’ll stick with tor bagging…. In any case it was around quarter past three and already the daylight was starting to dim. I realistically only had just over an hour of daylight left to complete the trek.

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My plan had been to head from Top Tor to Hollow Tor, but I was tempted by the obvious path to Pil Tor and on to Tunhill Rocks. This was three tors in ten minutes! From Tunhill Rocks, I headed north, which meant I was heading nearer to Top Tor, but much lower on the hillside. My target was Hollow Tor, ten minutes walk from Tunhill Rocks. From Tunhill Rocks, my quickest route, to avoid traversing lots of bits of moorland without paths was to make for the road.

I turned right having reached the road, passing the place where I had earlier hopped up on to the moor to reach Top Tor. Actually in retrospect, it would have been more efficient to have tackled these four tors in reverse order then made for the road junction at Hemsworthy Gate direct from Top Tor.

Once I arrived at Hemsworthy Gate, I could see an obvious path up Rippon Tor and decided I had tome to bag that one too. I arrived at the summit fairly quickly – it was just before ten past four. To my surprise as the light was definitely fading, there were two pairs of people walking up there and a friendly collie dog with one of the pairs. From the summit there were fine views; I could even see the Saddle Tor car park and just about make out my car (even without binoculars).

The question now was whether to try to get to the nineteenth and final tor on my planned route. I set off across pathless, hummocky, waterlogged terrain battling against time as darkness was falling. As I fought my way through some gorse bushes, growing up to waist height, I decided that my progress was too slow. Once I would have reached Bag Tor there appeared to be a path to the road, but it seemed to be too far without a path to reach the tor before darkness. Even with a head torch, I wasn’t keen on traversing this uneven ground with scattered rocks and occasional boggy areas in the dark. I headed towards the road, guided by seeing occasional car headlights and then picked up an obvious path which took me out on to the road directly opposite the car park and my car. Surprisingly, even though it was past sunset, there were still three other cars parked there – more than when I had arrived in the morning in broad daylight.

I had successfully bagged eighteen further tors – not a bad number for a short winter’s day, especially as I hadn’t started walking until 9am. I wonder whether I will be back to “bag” the aptly named Bag Tor one day. The problem is that it doesn’t really fall into any good tor bagging routes now but only near tors I’ve already got – but it is only a kilometre from the road so perhaps it will be one to get if I’m just driving back from somewhere else and there’s still some daylight left.

Incidentally I’ve just discovered another list of tors numbering 854 in total http://www.torsofdartmoor.co.uk/index.php but I think I’ll stick with my current list for the moment. I thought it was 371 tors but on closer inspection it’s actually 315, although only 285 of these are on open access land or footpaths. I’m up for bagging the ones on public access land first before I start contacting landowners, which doesn’t seem credible until I’ve done the public access ones. Sorry about Vixen Tor back in August; I ended up deviating from my planned route and didn’t realise I had trespassed until I got home and checked…… I’ve also discovered Max Piper’s amazing tor bagging blog https://www.torbagger.co.uk/p/welcome_24.html. This diversion into “tor bagging” is throwing up further future possibilities, all within a short drive from Exeter – including a catalogue of 10,146 Dartefacts – http://dartefacts.co.uk/ – it would take a long time to visit all those!