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Dartmoor National Park · One year

All the
Tors.
One year.

Every named tor on Dartmoor, walked in a single calendar year — raising money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, now Blood Cancer United.

The rule: if Einstein doesn't reach the tor, it doesn't count.

268 Tors completed
52 Weeks
16,580 Kilometres walked
£2,000+ Raised for charity
Snow-covered Dartmoor viewed from a granite tor, patchwork fields stretching into the distance
Winter on the high moor — snow-covered fields seen from the tor, Einstein surveying the landscape below

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

— Albert Einstein, faithful walking companion, all 268 tors
From the album
Einstein figure held up in front of dramatic granite tor outcrop on Dartmoor
Einstein at the tor
Einstein figure gazing up at a Dartmoor tor under a bright blue sky
Surveying the summit
The story

Why walk every tor on Dartmoor?

I'd fantasised about doing something like this for a while. The trigger to finally get over my inactivity was frustration at my inability to do anything about a friend's misfortune. So I decided to do something — walk every tor on Dartmoor, in one year, and raise money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research (now Blood Cancer United) in the process.

Dartmoor has 268 named tors — granite outcrops rising above the moorland, scattered over a wide and often unforgiving landscape. Some are famous and well-trodden. Many are tucked into remote valleys, hidden in forest, or surrounded by the kind of bog that makes you reconsider all your choices.

I set one rule that made it real: Einstein — a physics action figure I'd been given years ago, one that had already accompanied friends and me on various ridiculous adventures — had to reach every single tor. If he didn't get there, it didn't count.

"I still feel a bit bad — after all, you can't say 'sorry, this weekend I'm not up for it' if you have leukaemia."

Walking the moor in all weathers, often before or after a full day of teaching, often in the dark, occasionally in snow, occasionally waist-deep in bog — Einstein made it to all 268. He handled it with characteristic equanimity. As a physics teacher, I found his company appropriate.