This website brings together the information needed to prepare for the SRW, understand the map and introduce the navigation skills needed to use it effectively. Some sections are intended to be read during the early stages of planning, while others provide detailed information that can be returned to as your preparation develops.

To get the full value from this website, you should have the SRW Map in front of you while planning. Much of the information has been designed to be used alongside the map rather than independently of it. As you work through the website, continually locate the places being discussed on the map and relate the photographs, videos, elevation profiles and written descriptions to their position on the Ridge.

This is particularly important when working through the 15 Navigation Points. Locate each Navigation Point on the map and examine the terrain around it. Look at the contours, the direction of travel, the surrounding peaks, cols, gullies and other significant features, then compare that information with the photographs and videos on the corresponding page. The objective is not simply to recognise an individual photograph. It is to understand where that location sits within the wider landscape and what you should expect before and after reaching it.

Used in this way, the map becomes the geographical framework for the entire website. The individual pages add detail to that framework, but the map allows you to connect those details and build a continuous mental picture of the route. By the time you undertake the SRW, places you have not physically visited before should already have some context because you have studied their position, surrounding terrain and relationship to other features along the Ridge.

The map should also be carried with you on the SRW. The detailed preparation undertaken beforehand is intended to make the map more useful once you are actually on the Ridge. Features studied at home can then be related to the terrain around you, allowing you to confirm your position, anticipate what lies ahead and recognise when what you are seeing does not correspond with what you expected.

Are You Ready? is the starting point for considering whether your experience, fitness and preparation are appropriate for the SRW. It looks at the demands of the walk, mental readiness, consequential terrain, decision making and what can be learned from incidents on the Ridge. It is worth working through this material early rather than waiting until the rest of the trip has already been organised.

Map Usage explains the information contained on the Stirling Ridge Walk Map and how the map is intended to be used. It provides the connection between the printed map and the additional information available throughout this website.

Compass Navigation is a practical teaching section. It begins with the components of a baseplate compass before moving into orientating the map, taking bearings, plotting bearings, resection and back bearings. The intention is not simply to explain what these techniques are, but to help you understand how they can be applied when navigating in the terrain encountered on the SRW. Ensure you practice your navigation skills before relying on them on the Stirling Ridge Walk.

Map Navigation looks more broadly at how a navigator interprets and uses information. It includes situational awareness, different navigation styles, map scales, UTM coordinates and the relationship between GPS tracks and printed maps. It also considers the role of the printed map alongside electronic navigation. These pages are intended to develop an understanding of navigation rather than simply provide instructions for following the SRW.

Navigation Points 1 to 15 is a substantial part of the website and provides detailed information about specific locations along the route. Each Navigation Point has its own page, allowing the information for that location to be examined individually. There is also a separate page for 3rd Arrow Cave because of the complexity and importance of this area.

The Navigation Points use photographs, videos, maps and written descriptions to help you recognise the surrounding terrain and understand the route before you encounter it. Some locations are relatively straightforward, while others involve more complicated route choices or terrain where knowing your position becomes particularly important. Studying these pages with the map in front of you allows each location to become part of your understanding of the route rather than an isolated point.

Getting There provides the practical information needed to reach the starting and finishing areas and should form part of your transport and trip planning.

You do not need to work through the website in the order in which the sections appear in the menu. In practice, you are likely to move between them as questions arise. A Navigation Point may lead you back to the map to examine the surrounding contours. Something in Map Navigation may prompt you to practise a compass technique. Looking at an elevation profile may cause you to reconsider how a particular section fits into the day's walking.

This movement between the different parts of the website is intentional. The printed map provides the overall geographical framework. Map Navigation helps you interpret that information and understand the terrain. Compass Navigation develops the practical techniques that may be needed in the field. The Navigation Points provide detailed information about particular locations along the route, while photographs, videos and elevation profiles add further information about what you are likely to encounter.

The website should form part of your preparation rather than become something you depend upon once you are on the Ridge. Work through the material with the map beside you, practise the navigation techniques you may need, study the Navigation Points in relation to the surrounding terrain and make sure the electronic navigation you intend to carry is already set up and understood before leaving. The intention is to arrive on the SRW with a detailed understanding of the route, the major terrain features, the important Navigation Points and the more complex sections you will encounter. Carrying the map with you then allows that preparation to continue working for you on the Ridge, as you relate what you studied beforehand to the terrain you are actually moving through.

The Stirling Ridge Walk Map, photographs, videos and supporting information on this website have been designed to be used together. Each shows the same terrain in a different way. Keep the printed map in front of you while working through the website and use it as the geographical reference for the other material. When a Navigation Point or significant feature is mentioned, locate it on the map and look at where it sits within the route. Follow the track into the area and beyond it, and examine the surrounding contours before turning to the photographs or videos.

The map provides the view from above and shows how the major features of the Ridge relate to one another. The track line shows where the route passes through that terrain, while the contours describe the shape of the ground around it. As you follow the route across the map, look at how the contours change. Closely spaced contours indicate steeper ground, while the shapes formed by the contours allow ridges, gullies, cols and other terrain features to be identified. This can be done well beyond the immediate location being studied. If you are looking at a Navigation Point, follow the map forward towards the next significant feature and backwards through the terrain already crossed.

The elevation profile on the printed map provides another way of looking at the route. It shows the repeated climbing and descending across the entire SRW and the relative position of the major peaks and cols. This broader profile can be considered alongside the contours when examining how a particular part of the Ridge fits within the complete traverse.

Photographs move the perspective from the map to the view you are more likely to encounter on the ground. Where a photograph is associated with a Navigation Point, establish where it was taken and the direction in which the camera is looking. Features visible in the photograph can then be located on the map. A ridge that appears behind a rock formation may extend considerably further than can be seen in the photograph, while a gully disappearing from view can still be followed through its contours. Looking between the photograph and the map allows the visible landscape to be considered together with terrain that lies outside the frame.

Videos extend that view considerably. Most include a 360 degree pan from or around the Navigation Point. As the camera moves, follow the direction of view around the printed map and identify the features that come into sight. A peak may appear on one side of the frame and then disappear as the camera turns towards the route ahead. The pan may also reveal the terrain just travelled through, which is particularly useful if you intend to undertake the SRW in the opposite direction. Around more complicated locations, several possible lines may appear plausible when viewed on the ground even though the map shows that the intended route turns away from the most visually obvious one.

The 15 Navigation Points are where much of this material can be examined in detail. Find the point on the printed map first and look at a reasonable area around it rather than concentrating on the marker itself. Follow the track towards the point and continue beyond it. Look at the direction of travel and the contours on either side. Then move to the photographs and videos and try to identify the same terrain. When watching a 360 degree pan, return to the map as the view changes rather than watching the video as a separate piece of information.

This is particularly important in areas such as Pyungoorup Peak and the Arrows, where recognising one prominent feature does not necessarily tell you which line to follow through the surrounding terrain. Pyungoorup Peak, Pyungoorup Pinnacle and Baker's Knob can be located on the map, but the terrain connecting them also needs to be examined. Around the Arrows, the relationship between the individual rock formations, gullies and the larger Ridge can be difficult to appreciate from a photograph taken in one direction. Moving between the map and the 360 degree videos provides several perspectives on the same area before you encounter it yourself.

The same process should be applied backwards. A location studied while imagining travel towards Bluff Knoll may look quite different when approached from the Bluff Knoll direction. Features that were ahead of you are now behind, and the shape of a rock formation or gully may be much less distinctive from its opposite side. The photographs and videos taken in different directions can be compared with the same section of map without changing the underlying geography.

In clear conditions, much of the larger Ridge may be visible and prominent peaks provide useful references over considerable distances. Low cloud can remove those distant features and leave only the terrain close to your position visible. The map does not lose that wider information when the view disappears. You can still examine the contours around your expected position and compare them with the slope of the ground around you. If the map indicates that the track should be traversing below a ridge while the ground in front of you is dropping steeply into a gully, the difference deserves attention. The same applies if you expect to be climbing towards a col but the terrain has begun descending.

Preparation beforehand means that some of these relationships will already be familiar when you reach the Ridge. A group approaching a Navigation Point can compare what is actually visible with the map, photographs and video material studied earlier. In clear weather there may be enough information in the wider landscape to confirm the location from a considerable distance. In poor visibility, attention may shift towards the contours, the immediate shape of the ground and the expected direction of travel.

There is no need to memorise every photograph or try to retain every detail from the videos. Spend the preparation time moving repeatedly between the printed map and the website material, locating the features being discussed and following the route through the surrounding terrain. The same process can be repeated for each Navigation Point and for the sections connecting them.

This website and the Stirling Ridge Walk Map have been developed to provide detailed information about the SRW and to help walkers prepare for the terrain, navigation and decisions they may encounter. They cannot reproduce every condition that will exist when you undertake the walk, and some of the information necessarily represents the Ridge as it existed when the map, photographs, videos and other material were produced. The information should therefore be considered alongside what you encounter on the ground and any current information affecting access or conditions.

The Stirling Range is a changing environment. Vegetation grows and changes over time, while increasing use can make existing tracks wider and create additional informal lines through an area. Fire can alter the appearance of the landscape much more dramatically. In some places, the route has historically been followed through natural gaps in dense vegetation. After fire, much of that vegetation may disappear and the gap that previously helped define the route disappears with it. An obvious corridor can become a broad open area in which several possible lines appear equally plausible. As vegetation regenerates, the appearance of the same area changes again.

For this reason, the presence of a visible track is only one source of navigational information. Tracks may become faint or divide, and an informal line created by other walkers can draw you away from the intended route. Where several lines are visible, the most heavily used or easiest looking one should not automatically be assumed to be correct. Your position and direction of travel need to remain consistent with the map and with the terrain you expect to encounter as you continue.

Weather can produce an equally significant difference between the material shown on this website and what you encounter. A photograph taken in clear, dry conditions may bear little resemblance to the same location when cloud has reduced visibility and the surrounding peaks have disappeared. Rain changes the surfaces underfoot and wet vegetation can affect movement through already difficult terrain. Strong wind can also change how exposed sections are negotiated. The photographs and videos provide a record of how locations appeared under the conditions in which they were taken, not a prediction of how those locations will appear when you arrive.

Direction of travel can alter their appearance as well. A rock formation that is distinctive when approached from one direction may be difficult to recognise from the other, and vegetation or surrounding terrain may obscure features visible in an earlier photograph. Most of the videos include a 360 degree pan because a wider view provides more information about the relationship between a Navigation Point and its surroundings, but there will still be views and approaches that are not represented.

The printed map has a different set of limitations. A topographic map represents the landscape at a particular scale, which means that not every feature visible on the ground can be individually represented. Contours are especially useful for understanding the larger form of the Ridge and the relationship between major terrain features, but smaller rock formations and local variations in the ground may fall between the information represented by the contour interval.

This becomes important in some of the more complicated sections of the SRW. Pyungoorup Pinnacle near Navigation Point 5 is a significant feature on the ground but is not individually defined by the contours. Within the Arrows, several features important to understanding the route also exist at a scale that cannot be adequately described by the contour information alone. East Pinnacle and the surrounding terrain in the 3rd Arrow section are examples of the additional detail that becomes apparent once you are physically within the landscape. The Navigation Point photographs and videos are intended to be examined alongside the map in these areas rather than expecting the contour information to reproduce every feature encountered.

Distances and altitudes are also subject to small variations between GPS recordings, mapping data and different devices. The recorded walking times require considerably more interpretation because the same section can take very different amounts of time on different journeys. Fitness and pack weight affect progress, while weather or vegetation can alter the rate at which the ground can be crossed. Navigation can consume additional time without adding much distance at all. Direction of travel changes the physical demands of a section because a climb becomes a descent and scrambling terrain may be approached differently from the opposite direction. The recorded times on this website have been provided as reference information drawn from actual journeys rather than as times that another walker should expect to reproduce.

Descriptions of difficulty and exposure involve judgement as well. Terrain that feels manageable to somebody accustomed to scrambling with a full pack may be much more confronting to another walker. Conditions can alter that judgement during the same journey. Ground crossed comfortably while dry may require considerably more care after rain, and a walker who was moving confidently early in the day may approach the same degree of difficulty very differently after many hours of physical effort.

Information about campsites, water and possible ways of leaving the Ridge needs to be considered in terms of the circumstances that exist when you are there. Water availability can change and a source shown on a map or discussed on this website should not be assumed to contain water. An alternative route away from the higher Ridge may itself involve steep or difficult terrain followed by a considerable distance before practical road access is reached. Changes to park access can occur independently of the information presented here, including closures or restrictions imposed because of fire or other management requirements. Current official information should be checked before entering Stirling Range National Park.

Neither the website nor the map can assess what is happening within your group once the journey is underway. The information available before departure cannot know whether progress has been slower than expected or whether somebody who began the day strongly is becoming increasingly tired. It cannot assess the significance of deteriorating weather at your particular location or determine whether the remaining daylight is adequate for the terrain ahead. Those circumstances develop during the journey and need to be incorporated into decisions as they arise.

The map, Navigation Points, photographs and videos provide information that can be used when making those decisions, but none should be treated as a substitute for what you can observe and establish for yourself on the Ridge. Preparation allows you to arrive with an understanding of the route and the terrain likely to be encountered. Once the walk has begun, that understanding has to be continually compared with the terrain around you, your actual position, the conditions being experienced and the condition of the people with whom you are travelling.

The SRW cannot be reduced to a set of instructions that will reproduce the same journey for every walker. The route passes through an environment that changes with vegetation, fire and weather, and the people travelling through it will arrive with different levels of experience and encounter different conditions. The website and printed map provide information for preparing for that journey and for interpreting what is encountered once on the Ridge.