Just got back from my ride and I’m pretty devastated to find that from Nuns Cross all the way to Princetown the path has been resurfaced with chippings.
This not being bad enough they have also removed all the drainage ditches that used to be so fun to jump over/face plant into.
Not sure who has paid for it or even who it benefits, I guess the path has been pretty bad for a few years but it’s never put off walkers.
Pretty gutted really.

Dartmoor weather will sort it out soon enough.

And it was an artificially constructed path in the first place anyway.

Did not know about this until yesterday. Been riding that route for best part of 25 years and can remember it before there was any hard surface. I can’t understand why they would do this it was really not in that bad a state to begin with. Gutted

Local authorities have a legal obligation to maintain bridleways in a decent conditon. That’s why in the 1960s they reclassified most of the old packhorse trails as footpaths.

Been riding that route for best part of 25 years and can remember it before there was any hard surface.

I was walking up there 25 years ago and it was a shit fest. the off-roaders ( army/marines i imagine using the farm ) used to go up there and it wasn’t double track in places, it was twice that and more. there were howls of outrage when the park fixed it last time, and it’s lasted 20 years.
as jambo, give it a couple of years, and it’ll get more interesting again. it’s not like that section was all that great anyway, the best bits start at the cross.

I was walking up there 25 years ago and it was a shit fest

Yep that’s how I remember it, huge bottomless mud pits that swallowed your front wheel whole when wet 🙂

I am wondering if they are going to do anything to the section after the cross. If the bit between Princetown and nuns cross was considered to need repairing then I can only imagine what they think of the following section to Ditsworthy Warren.

I parked in Princetown car park a couple of months ago and there was some tourism day on.

Got chatting to a National Park dude who said they were going to start doing stuff to be more welcoming for people of all ages and abilities. ‘Fair enough’ I said, ‘but don’t go near the really good MTB routes, Nutcrackers etc as you’ll loose the locals’, his reply…….the locals don’t bring in the money from tourism. At that point I put my bike back on the car and drove off.

National Park Dude is probably going to get punched one of these days. If whoever does assault him commits the crime on an odd day of the month, the local police may well not investigate!!

his reply…….the locals don’t bring in the money from tourism.

They don’t.

And the nutcracker is nowhere near Princetown

Rode it yesterday. It’s not that bad and they got rid of the bottomless wheel eating bog at South Hessary Tor which can only be a good thing.

You’ll be pleased to hear the rain is doing a pretty good job of undoing the surfacing work.

Yeah I was up there today, nice to be able to jump the gutters again. Roll on winter?!?

I’m sure some of them were deeper than before. Loads of people climbing up the widowmaker, anyone would think the tour de moor was routed up there in a couple of weeks.

I was a tourist last week and went there for the nutcracker and widowmaker trails! Hope they remain, first visit to Dartmoor and never realised how lovely and technical the trails are 🙂

Is this the trail that climbs gently from behind the Plume of Feathers? We road the first few hundred metres over a chipping surface and lots of drainage gullys before turning right where a mini digger was doing some resurfacing. I’m assuming the bit to the Feathers has been done a while.

(and is the 48 Ounce Ribeye steak in the Feathers as good as the barman claims?!)

Yeah I saw loads of folks testing out the route! Did you ride it today jam bo?

I rode up to Princetown from tavy and then back down the widowmaker, through burrator, down the banana trail and back through yelvy.