The Eastern Stirling Range multi-day walking on the Ridge — and the untracked ways beyond it

I have had the great pleasure to be able to walk across the eastern Stirling ranges for more than 40 years. During my university years, friends and I had numerous expeditions to the ranges where we would spend anything between two to seven nights hiking across the ridge and into the northern and southern valleys and plains.

There is the well-known ‘Ridge Walk’ which is very loosely marked but well trod, going from the northern foothill of Ellen Peak (E) through to the very public trail up Bluff Knoll (BK) across the ridge. Apart from the well trod track on the northern plain up to the first arrow, there are no other tracks. I have adopted the conventional naming terminology used on current maps. Doing this was difficult because I want to acknowledge the enormous history of land used by indigenous people in this area. I have attempted to clarify some of the nomenclature in a section at the end of the website.

If you wish to venture into often more interesting regions then you must venture without a track in the feeling that you are the first person to walk that particular route. That is probably not the case as indigenous people have lived in the area for thousands of years. But the bush is frequently quite thick and without obvious tracks, one feels like a true explorer. There is a great satisfaction in having found one’s own way across an un-tracked piece of land. In many ways it is analogous to finding new ways in life and innovation, where one has to prepare carefully but take some risk. One motivation for writing this site is to try and encourage more younger people to hike this area and experience this type of satisfaction. I’ve only included a few non-ridge walk tracks as examples. I have drawn some schematic diagrams to try and illustrate these routes. A general piece of advice is that where you think there may be difficulty it is usually easier to approach it going uphill rather than downhill. The reason is that it is usually easier to see the route from the downhill side and if you come to a dead end going uphill it is much easier to return downhill. If you reach a dead end having gone downhill it is much more difficult to struggle one’s way through thick bush climbing uphill at the same time.

The Ridge walk itself is not easy and one must be an experienced bushwalker in order to attempt the Ridge walk. It involves significant rock climbing around the first arrow and also a ledge walk on the south edge of Pyungorup peak (with a 500 foot drop off). I divide these notes and text into several components, the first being a standard but fairly brief description of the classic Ridge walk going from east to west. The second is a description of some other routes coming off the ridge or around the ridge, which are non-standard. The third includes some general advice. I attach quite a few photographs. I have enjoyed photography in the Stirling ranges. I attach several schematic diagrams and a fairly detailed map of the area with the routes marked.