By: Blonde Two

The expedition season has already started for Blonde One; but for me and today’s youngsters, this is the first training session for Ten Tors 2016. Which is why I was particularly pleased to see the weather forecast. It has a bit of everything on it (I think only Dartmoor can do that). There are some suns, some rains, some clouds, a bit of wind and, most excitingly, some snowflakes.

In reality of course, this means heavier Blonde packs because we will need to carry:

  1. More sandwiches to keep ourselves warm.
  2. More Jelly Babies to keep cold kids happy.
  3. More gloves because somebody always loses some.
  4. More trousers because if someone got wet, they would also get frozen.
  5. More water bottles because platypus tubes can freeze.
  6. More hot drinks because kids think they don’t need them.
  7. More hats because someone will forget theirs.
  8. More compasses because someone wearing gloves will drop one.
  9. More flapjack because some friends need it to keep perky.
  10. More smiles because Dartmoor when it is freezing is a beautiful place.

I am really looking forward to getting out there with youngsters again. Ten Tors is a wonderful thing to be involved in and I will be with one of my favourite teams of people. It is a shrinking team, but a strong and caring one. The final training session will come around all too quickly; I intend to make the most of it all while I can!