Although I now live in South Wales I was born and raised in Okehampton, a smallish town on the edge of Dartmoor. I’d been up to the moors a fair bit over the years, but only recently, when I got into mountain and hill working in Wales, did I realise that just above Okehampton were two mountains.
I also didn’t realise that these were the only mountains South of the Brecon Beacons in Wales and the Peak District in England, so that makes them pretty special as you have to go a long way to get to other mountains.
Yes Tor stands at 619m and High Willhays at 621m, and they both offer interesting views and decent summits, whilst both are accessible from every direction following routes offering varying amounts of ascent.
You can drive up to this part of Dartmoor from Okehampton and can actually park pretty close to these two mountains. This makes them kid-friendly mountains and the walking is generally easy, but can get a little rocky in places. This is what I did as we had several kids along for the trip, and the route at 4m was a good morning out for everyone.
This part of Dartmoor offers a lot of peaks that nearly qualify as mountains and due to the rocky outcrops on most tops it makes for a very photogenic set of summits.
Yes Tor is certainly one of the more interesting summits I’ve walked with the trig point set upon a large crop of rocks and accompanied by various little buildings and masts. High Willhays has some good rocks to climb up as well as a substantial rock-pile marking the summit, and the highest point for many, many miles.
A really good walk, but do bear in mind the area is very open so make sure you are prepared for changeable conditions and have layers just in case.
I’ll definitely be doing more Tors in Dartmoor, which is weird given that I lived so close to them for the first 18 years of my life and wasn’t that bothered by them.