AROUND 2,400 youngsters from across the region will descend on Dartmoor this weekend to take part in this year's Ten Tors and Jubilee challenges.

The annual event, now in its 53rd year, is one of the biggest and toughest adventure challenges for young people in Britain. It starts bright and early on Saturday from Okehampton Camp, where teams of six, ranging in age from 14 to 19, will start their trek.

The challenge will prove to be one of the toughest tasks the youngsters will have faced in their lives, with teams having to trek unaided across 35, 45 or 55 miles of Dartmoor's terrain.

Each team must rely on their navigational skills and co-operative team skills to complete the course, which offers every kind of stream, bog and river to cross, and difficult granite-topped hills to climb.

The majority of the teams entering Ten Tors are from the region's schools and youth groups. They will be joined by scout groups, sports and ramblers teams and armed forces cadet units who have also accepted the challenge.

A key part of the Ten Tors ethos is that teams must remain entirely self-sufficient during their arduous challenge. They must camp on the moor overnight and carry all the food, water, bedding, tents and other essentials they will need to sustain them on their challenge.

Equally testing for the less able bodied is the Jubilee challenge, which starts shortly after the start of Ten Tors. Around 300 youngsters — many in wheelchairs — will start the challenge, completing routes up to 15 miles long.

Teams or individuals are all accompanied by an officer cadet from Exeter University Officer Training Corp. Cadets also man checkpoints to track participants' progress and are ready to assist in case of problems.

Brigadier Piers Hankinson, director of Ten Tors and Commander of 43 (Wessex) Brigade said: 'For more than five decades Ten Tors has been a national flagship event, whose reputation as our foremost endeavour for youth development is firmly established and the Army, supported by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, is committed to its future.

'I consider Ten Tors to be integral to the strong relationship that exists between the civilian community and its Armed Forces in the South West, and Ten Tors demonstrates the aims of the covenant in action.

'Over the years, clothing, equipment and regulations will have changed, but the underlying challenge of walking unaided over the forbidding Dartmoor terrain to visit "ten tors" remains as demanding today as it has ever been. '