Serpentine Chalet Dam to Serpentine Gorge (Day 9, Sect. 8)
Iconic views and a spectacular folded rock gorge
Yes, today gives you that iconic view, with a seat to enjoy it in leisurely slowerhiking style!
Today’s exhilarating 15.2km/9.4mi hike takes you through foothills before a steep 300m/980ft climb past several emergency wild camp sites brings you back onto the Heavitree Range. Pop your packs down at the junction at the top and take your day pack along the spur trail west to Count’s Point from which all those iconic photos of the trail are taken; you’ll look westward all the way to Mt Sonder and marvel at how far you’ve already come. You’ll find a few small, designated campsites at the top around Count’s Point.
Backtrack to the junction and follow the ridge east with marvellous views all the way with a peek at the gorge at the end, before the steep and rocky track plummets, again on the southern side of the range.
Once down, you’ll find the terrain much easier underfoot. You’ll pass the food resupply, so you’ll need half an hour or so to repack everything, and then it’s through the carpark and back north towards the range to the campground. Set up camp at the campground, then take a daypack for an extra 2km/1.24mi out and return (1km/0.62mi each way) to Serpentine Gorge - an easy, flat walk and the gorge is beautiful and worth a look (but swimming is prohibited). If you still have energy left, climb the short lookout walk on the eastern side of the gorge.
If you’re following our itinerary, compare your times to ours each day or check the table in Itinerary. Or, check your times against the ones in your Park Maps. That way, when you reach the most challenging sections around Standley Chasm, you’ll know whether you will be faster or slower than us or official figures on those days, and whether you need to allow more time. We took a total of 9.2 hours this day including rest stops, meal breaks, sightseeing, and the two side trips.
Overview map
Here’s the map, clearly showing the terrain: along the southern foothills first, a steep climb up the tiered layers of the range, a spur trail to Count’s Point and a traverse along the ridge, followed by a steep descent back to the southern foothills to Serpentine Gorge campground. The short red line is the side trip to Serpentine Gorge from the campground.
How to Make Today Easier
Today’s distance of 15.2km/9.4mi is graded Moderate-Difficult but very doable for slower hikers following our conservative itinerary. You have a steep rocky climb and descent, and the ridgeline traverse is variably rocky too, but the terrain on the lower reaches is easy underfoot. Although you have no scrambling today, your trekking poles will be welcome because you have a climb plus a descent! Look closely at the track images, especially of the climb and descent, to judge what your speed might be in comparison to other days. We found it no more difficult than other climbs or descents thus far.
When we hiked, we met a couple of ‘highlights tour’ hikers on the ridge at the junction to Counts Point who weren’t bothering with the spur trail to the lookout (a total of 1.4km/0.87mi to the lookout and back). However, skip the lookout only if you are exhausted or injured because the view is fantastic, one of the best on the entire Larapinta. If you have made the distances in previous days thus far, you should be fine today too: just take it steadily. As always, start early to give yourself plenty of daylight.
If you are carrying or have packed spare food into your resupply box, you might consider splitting this day in two and staying at Count’s Point high campsite overnight, but it is only about 7.7km/4.8mi, probably just a little too short in today’s terrain even for most slower hikers who have managed thus far with our itinerary. However, you’ll also need to carry extra water as there is none between Serpentine Chalet Dam and Serpentine Gorge, and the extra weight will make the climb more demanding. You have to decide this at Serpentine Chalet Dam before leaving. If you’re unsure, you can always discard water on the way up, but you can’t conjure it out of thin air should you need it!
Walk with Us
An early start sees you hiking through mulga woodland on undulating but easy track. With such clear skies in central Australia, nights and early mornings are often cold: even Geoff is wearing his beanie and fleece top. Fleece beanies are as warm as wool ones, much lighter, and dry much faster; with his chronically uninsulated head Geoff has a sleeping beanie as well as a daytime one!
You’ll pass a number of wild campsites on the way up. The lower ones aren’t particularly helpful for hikers like us because they are too close to designated campsites, but are probably used by hikers doing big distances.
Higher on your climb, you’ll pass more wild campsites amongst the mulga. These may be of emergency use to E2W hikers who had planned to stay at Counts Point, but are not able to due to the (few) high campsites being occupied, or because it is too windy: most of the Counts Point campsites are pretty exposed. You, however, hike comfortably past these lower ones.
Remember that tiered appearance on the map above? Here is one of those distictive tiered layers.
You have steep climbs, here with agricultural steps, alternating with more gentle slopes as you ascend.
Subtly scented Bluerod (Stemodia florulenta) is an important plant for butterfies.
Some of the track is like this along sloping rocky outcrops. These would be slippery when wet.
Once you climb out of the trees you’re in full sun until after your descent at the end of the day.
It’s hard to believe that all this was once covered by water in a shallow lagoon, but here is the ripple evidence in sandstone.
You can apparently identify the original direction of flow by brushing your hand across it: the smooth way is downstream, whilst feeling the sharper edges are upstream.
Once you reach the T-junction on the ridge, you could stop for lunch in the shade of a few lonely pines. You yourself will unlikely be lonely in peak season, however, because this is where ALL the guided tours stop. If you eat your lunch there too, watch enviously as a guide lays out a glorious spread on a picnic rug for clients. Cheese, salami, fresh salad ingredients, felafel, wraps, cheese… yes, we still remember it! Much better to take your lunch to the point and eat there!
So leave your pack at the junction and head up the spur trail with your day pack. Note from the above photo that it’s extremely rocky and deceptively slow.
Soon you reach the point, with another scatter of pines and one sheltered campsite with a rock wall…
… plus more sites in the open, definitely only suitable for calm conditions. All the sites here looked too small for our XMid Pro2 with its rectangular footprint.
And here is that view. Wow. Yesterday you walked up this glorious valley, with the point now beneath your feet comprising the big reveal from the saddle. Isn’t it just grand? In the distance are Mt Sonder, Mt Razorback and Mt Giles. My geology book tells me the ridges are Heavitree sandstone separated by a valley of sheared basement rock.
After lunch and views from Counts Point, walk back down, pick up your packs and head east along the ridge for about 4km/2.5mi. The trail is mostly extremely rocky with north and south views the entire way, plus plenty of wildflowers to distract botanists, here pink MacDonnell Ranges Hakea (H. grammatophylla), found only on the higher elevations.
When you reach the eastern end of the ridge, you have excellent views across parts of Serpentine Gorge with its spectacular folded layers. I had imagined that the name referenced the winding path of the gorge, but the real reason is clear in this image.
Hill Wallflower Poison (Gastrolobium brevipes) grows on hilltops in the MacDonnells and contains a toxin that affects introduced animals but not native ones that evolved alongside it; it is the chemical on which 1080 is based.
From the ridge you turn sharply south and descend steeply down. These rough steps are welcome, but you’ll also have rocky track similar to that of the track up earlier.
All the way down, you have yet more views across the plain to the Pacoota Range.
Tangled Leschenaultia (L. divaricata).
As soon as you hit the rolling foothills the walking becomes much easier…
… through more mulga woodland.
You’ll find the resupply container — literally a container! — off a spur trail just west of the carpark.
Don’t bother packing chocolate unless it’s melt resistant M&Ms: the container is like an oven. There’s our little 32L box top left; the track transfer companies offer 50L boxes. You must write the collection date on the outside of your box so it’s not thrown out.
We packed clean undies and socks in this resupply, and changed into them there, leaving our dirty ones safely double bagged back in the box to pick up after our hike.
From the resupply container and through the car park it’s a short hop to the campsite. Because it’s so close to public access, this site is much used by school groups and indeed there was one here when we stayed. The kids were great and vacated the hut for hikers who wanted to cook there.
Plenty of flat campsites scattered amongst the mulga all around the hut.
Once you’re set up, grab your day pack and head 1km/0.62mi to Serpentine Gorge in the evening light.
Yet another beaut finish to yet another beaut day. How good is the Larapinta!
We respectfully acknowledge the Arrernte People as the traditional custodians of the land on which we walk and pay our respects to Elders past and present and to the Aboriginal people present today.
