Black-a-tor-Copse - the name, folkloric and musical trips off the tongue like the lilting gait of the cantering ponies of the moor. Wedged below ledge on either side; Fordsland to the east and the stark escarpment of the Slipper Stones and Branscombe’s Loaf to the west, this is Dartmoor at its most dramatic and lofty. Here granite has been pushed to its limit - 2000ft and more - above the the rolling tunic of Devon’s long-cultivated farmland. In a slender gap no wider than a kilometre the high peaks and plateau swoop swiftly into a narrow gouge 800ft below, draining the newborn Western Okement River off the moor to Meldon reservoir and the kitchens and bathrooms of Okehampton.
Early January and frost has paralysed the land, contorting the thick flat-stemmed grasses into crippled forms rippling down the steep hillside to the close-clipped dip and curve of the valley floor. Dropping down from High Willhays, the highest point in Southern England where snow has been found well into June, we spot the fox several contours below. Its burnt orange coat is set in profile against dusted white tufts as it stands, frozen into the landscape, smelling the air. We have been seen long before we see. We stand transfixed, seemingly the only living things for miles, locked in a symbiotic seance journeying together, back to a simpler time. A sudden movement of the animal snaps us back. It turns and it is gone, bounding downhill and across the threshold of stunted oaks into the Copse.
We follow our token totem and cross into another realm, the gnarled black limbs embracing us as we venture deeper into an old world. Along with Wistman’s Wood faraway to the south, it stands as the only remaining ancient forest on Dartmoor. But here it is as wild and remote as Wistman’s is tamed and accessible by the hordes of hikers and tourists from Two Bridges and Princetown. This is one of the Wild Places. Boulder and branch compete in an epic battle through deep time, melded into one living organism. Passing through is like entering the womb of creation, unfettered by the unnatural laws of civilisation. A tumbling torrent of pure nature; a remnant of what came before jutting spectacularly into the 21st century, piercing the arrogant bubble of merciless man. The sound here is deadened, broken only by the call of a crow and the susurration of the rushing water below. We stop and take stock, reset. Never has there been a better place to reset. The brief sun disappears over Corn ridge and the day is almost done. Reluctantly we leave the wood and head northwards and back to an uncivilised world.