The Stirling Ridge Walk
A 2 to 3 day hiking adventure in Western Australia with some challenging rock scrambles and epic scenery.
The Stirling Ridge Walk
Overview
The Stirling Ridge Walk has been described as ‘The Western Arthurs of Western Australia’. The Arthurs traverse in Tasmania is regarded as one of the hardest (and most spectacular) tracked walks in Australia. This Ridge Walk is similarly regarded as the hardest tracked walk in WA.
In our view the 2 or 3 day Ridge Walk isn’t quite as challenging as the Arthurs, but it does provide for plenty of rock scrambling, ridge-top navigational challenges, unpredictable mountain weather, and (a bonus) you get to carry multiple days of water up onto the ridge.
The views are as rugged and spectacular as they are varied. The route is fairly straightforward to follow with a good pad through most areas. There are plenty of false leads along the way, and rock sections are particularly under-marked. Cairns are infrequent we found a GPS track to be particularly useful when multiple tracks went off different ways and we needed to pick one. It also helped when (a few times) we passed a turn off and were lured along the ridge top to a dead-end of some sort. Proverbially and sometimes literally bluffed.
On This Page…
Images
It’s a spectacular place. You can buy prints of our most popular Stirling Ranges images.
And don’t forget to check out our Gallery of Western Australia.
Getting There
The 5 hour drive south east from Perth to the Stirling Ranges includes some beautiful farmland and fields. Keep an eye out for emus too, we often see them on this drive.
You can start the walk at either the Bluff Knoll car park or more commonly from the Ellen Peak car park, which allows for an east-to-west traverse of the range. Whilst there are public and tourist transport options to get to the area, they are infrequent and you’ll likely need your own car to get from the start of the hike to the end, or visa versa.
From A to B
That leads to the next key point – it’s not a circuit walk, unless you clock up the extra distance to walk back to your start point. This adds at least half-a-day to the trip.
We’ve done the ridge both by walking a full loop, and also by having two cars for a car shuffle. The latter certainly makes the planning easier, and the walking less. The blue arrows in the map show the return route we took to walk a full circuit on one occasion. In that case we did the blue arrow part first. See below Suggested Itineraries for more details.
Where to Stay
We’ve found the Stirling Range Retreat to be an excellent base for various activities in these ranges having spent many nights camped there over the years.
There is are alternatives such as the Mt Trio Bush Camp but we’ve never stayed there, purely for logistical reasons.
At times the Retreat and other locals have offered a shuttle service to get hikers to the start of the track, and picked up at the end. At the time of writing none of these were operating so all hikers are required to make their own transport arrangements.
Navigation
As noted in the introduction the route is fairly straightforward to follow with a good pad in most parts. There are various false leads along the way, and rock sections are particularly under-marked. Cairns are infrequent so we highly recommend getting a GPS track along with the equipment and experience to use one in remote areas.
Mobile phone coverage is not guaranteed on the ridge, so make sure any electronic navigation works off-line.
The Chart & Map Shop in Fremantle has a map specifically intended for those hiking this route. It’s available on request.
There is a kit available from the Stirling Range Retreat which includes maps, route guides, and other helpful information. For our first time through, we used this kit along with an offline GPS track & maps from All Trails.
Water
There’s no reliable water on the ridge, so plan to carry all you need. For us that’s at least 6 litres per person, but this depends on weather (heat), how much you drink, whether your food needs water added, and of course how long you plan to take. Running out of water is not something we’d like to experience on the ridge, so we’ve always taken a little too much, rather than too little.
There is a barrel placed under a rock-fed drip around Third Arrow and conveniently close to the main camping cave. It was put in place by some committed adventures many years ago to supplement the water you carry. It’s a little tricky to access, but works well and we’ve used it to top up our supply (and spoil ourselves with an extra-long drink) on some trips.
However there is no guarantee that the barrel will have water when you arrive, so it is essential that folks bring ample water for their whole journey.
Access to the barrel is shown in the images below by following a well-trodden pad to the left as you exit the narrow grassed chasm in the Third Arrow:
Camp Sites
There are many camp site options along the route though few offer shelter or wind protection from all directions.
The Third Arrow camp cave is by far the most popular, and it’s partly for this reason that we’ve never stayed there. The cave allow for a tent-free option saving some weight, but we prefer the flexibility of staying anywhere (helpful if things don’t go to plan) and have found caves to be very dusty if there’s strong wind blowing the wrong way.
A big factor in determining camp sites will be your itinerary. If you can start early, it’s likely most people could make the camp cave in a day. Our itineraries have seen us leaving later in the day. We once camped prior to climbing the ridge, around the junction with the northern boundary track which was adequate and suited our trip.
One of our favourite sites is a small saddle on the Ellen spur with two excellent sheltered sites. Well protected, with great views for sunrise and sunset.
There are camp options in rocky overhangs around Pyungoorup (on the southern face) but we’ve never been in this location towards the end of the day. Similarly with the Third Arrow camp cave.
The best option for us has been the less-sheltered She-Oak Col. It’s adequate, and has made a better half-way point for our schedules.
There are a couple of other sites closer to Bluff Knoll. Eucalypt Col as a sheltered site which looks ideal.
Lastly there is an exposed flat rock on Bluff Knoll East Peak, on the elevated climb up (if travelling east-west). This has stunning views, is highly exposed, and few options to anchor your tent. There’s also only room for one tent at best. But if the weather’s calm and you can fit on the rock – it’s amazing.
We’ve seen folks camped at all these spots over our trips. Apart from the one-tent flat rock, all of these allow for 3 or 4 tents in the area. First in will get nice spots, and if it’s a busy night, late comers will get ever rougher, sloping and more exposed sites.
Planning an Itinerary
The first decision is about which end to start and finish the trip. This may be influenced by other logistics like availability of transport, weather, or just personal preference. But by far the most common is to start at the more remote Ellen Peak and walk west to Bluff Knoll. Left to right on the range as viewed above from the northern boundary track. It will be right to left on a traditional north-facing map.
East to West has the disadvantage of starting lower and ending higher (if you walk one way only). But one of many advantages is that most folks can get the hardest part out of the way on the first day up on the ridge, camping at She-Oak Col with the three arrows behind them. The day out to Bluff Knoll from there is far easier.
Prepositioning on Ellen Spur
On our first trip we had only one car so preferred to use an afternoon to drop our car at Bluff Knoll, walk (and were lucky enough to get a lift) back to the park entry point, then walk 4 hrs to so along the northern boundary track to camp around the Ellen spur turn off. It’s easy to miss by the way. We walked past it and would not have known if not for the GPS track. There is no large cairn nor other substantial markings to identify this small pad.
On a latter trip with two cars, we left Perth early and drove the 5 hours to park out at the eastern end of the park, at Ellen Peak track car park. Then walked for the later afternoon up the tracked Ellen spur to camp at one of the two very sheltered sites in a minor col on the spur.
In both cases, this allowed us a half-day of walking to shorten the days up on the range. Though it also meant we carried water for an additional night.
Traversing the Ellen Peak to The Arrows
This is where the fun begins. The route climbs steeply to Ellen Peak. We’ve always traversed the northern face below the summit, and then dropped packs to climb it from the western side. If clear, the views are stunning.
Back down at our packs, the route is fairly clear towards Pyungoorup, which we climbed on one occasion. You can’t go over the top of Pyungoorup to Bakers Knob for reasons that will become obvious when you get to the western side of the peak. So it’s an out-and-back summit. It was easy enough, but further than it looked and took quite a bit of our day by the time we re-traced our steps back to where we’d left the packs.
The peak is ultimately traversed via it’s southern side. So the vegetation becomes denser, there’s a lot of sward grass, the track meanders all over the place with various false leads (if false is the right term when there’s no formal track?). Let’s just say ‘with many leads’.
Ultimately you emerge on the ridge top again and make an easy traverse Bakers Knob where the Third Arrow comes into view.
Traversing the Arrows to She-Oak Col
The Third Arrow is traversed by an exciting series of climbs, descents, notches and chasms. The northern side of the Third Arrow is the location of the camping cave (that we’ve never used) and the western side has a pad south to an overhang with a water barrel mentioned and shown above
By this stage it’s easy to feel that the worst is behind you and the distance across the remaining two arrows to She-Oak Col is not far. But the route is quite convoluted and took us several hours.
The Second Arrow is a reasonably easy summit with a steep descent.
The First Arrow is easy enough to summit and many people have crated pads and false leads west along the ridge, but there is no way to descend this way, so after faffing around here (on more than one occasion) we finally found the route down the northern face of the arrow.
It’s an unlikely route that descends steeply and will require both your hands and feet. We passed packs a couple of times around tricker sections. But after what feels like a long time at the end of a long and adventurous day, you emerge at She-Oak Col to find a series of open spaces which are variously un-level and unsheltered.
Arriving late on a busy night, we were the third tent in and had to move a few rocks to create a sort-of-level patch. On a subsequent visit we arrived earlier and with no one else all night so had the pick of the spots.
It’s not a bad camp site. There’s plenty of room. It’s just that not many of them are as optimal as the ones we’d passed during the day. Either way though, we’ve always slept well after this big day on the range!
Traversing Isongorup and on to Bluff Knoll
The final stage and for us the final day of the trip starts with a gentle but steady climb from She-Oak Col onto Isongorup Peak. If the weather is clear you get great views back the way you came. After a series of minor summits, the track begins a steep decent then around towards Eucalypt Col before re-ascending, this time onto Bluff Knoll’s East Peak.
As noted in the camp sites above, there is a stunning and improbable large flat rock on the ascent that could make a great camp site for one tent on a still night.
It’s quite a climb onto Bluff Knoll, getting steeper as you go up. But with the packs lighter with most of the food and water consumed, you eventually top out on the plateau and traverse across to the Bluff Knoll summit usually to the sound of day hikers that have just popped up from the car park.
After taking time to absorb the stunning views and all that you’ve achieved, it’s time to head down the easy tourist track to the car park. In our planning, we’ve always been sure to have a car waiting at this point to end the hike.
Here are some of our final views, first from the summit of Bluff Knoll, then from the car park at dusk.
Elsewhere in The Stirlings
The Stirling Ranges offer many other tracked peaks. In the image below you can see cloud streaming from the summit of Toolbrunup, one of the higher peaks in the park which we’ve loved climbing on several occasions.
Toolbrunup Peak
One of our favourite climbs in the park. The route starts off following the main creek and ascends the gully to a boulder scree shown here. Really pretty if the wild flowers are out.
From the top of the scree there’s a short scramble to the summit. It takes us about 4 hours to do a return trip.
View from the summit are spectacular on a clear day. It’s a relatively isolated peak so there are expansive views in every direction.
And even more peaks can be seen to the west!
Talyuberlup Peak
A short steep climb with very spectacular views makes Talyuberlup another of our favourites. After some final rock scrambles you pop through a cave-like opening to see the view in the image below. After this you are only minutes from the summit with equally spectacular views.
Mount Magog
Whilst in the area, Mt Magog is a longer hike that requires crossing the basin shown in the left of the image above, and climbing the somewhat forested rounded top in the middle of the same image.
We’ve heard rumour of a track between Talyuberlup and Magog along the ridge line. Reports are that it’s overgrown, scratchy, but followable. We’re happy to leave this one for the more ambitious hikers out there.
Further Reading & Helpful Links
Disclaimer
These are simply notes from our own travel and trips which we hope others will find helpful. They are intended to be neither a guide nor recommendation. You should do your own research before attempting to access these areas yourself, and manage your own safety. Check out our detailed disclaimer here.
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