Everything you need to know about hiking the Larapinta Trail

W2E (West to East)
From a point of logistics I think it is easier to hike West to East in terms of pick up/drop off. If you start your hike at Yarretyeke / Redbank Gorge then you can adjust the length of your trip without affecting any booked pick-ups at the other end (as you finish in Alice Springs). I.e. if you’re half way through and feeling pretty cooked, you can just take an extra, unplanned rest day, as it’s only going to change the day you arrive at Alice Springs – you’re not going to be missing your (expensive) booked ride home from Yarretyeke/Redbank. 
It also means that to begin your trek, you can be a little more flexible in starting day/time and potentially hitchhike to the start to avoid having to pay the pick up/drop off fees offered by the companies. However, this is assuming you have a little time up your sleeve and don’t have a flight booked out of Alice right after the end of the trek like we did.

​The companies will drop you big plastic tubs to your accomodation that you can fill with whatever you like. They then come and pick them up and drop them out to your chosen locations on trail (different companies may offer different locations). They will then pick up the boxes (perhaps full of your rubbish from the previous section) for you afterwards on trail so you don’t need to worry about them.
Important things to note:

• It  usually costs extra if you wish to place items in the boxes on the trail that you can retrieve later (i.e. if you’re carrying a rain jacket or spare battery pack and during your hike decide you don’t want to carry it, you could leave it in your box), however this usually has to be decided as an option before starting your hike.
• You cannot leave your rubbish in the boxes with all companies, this is something you will need to check before

We chose to have 2 food drops on the hike, meaning that at any given stage the max amount of food we were carrying was 4 days worth. Which is great because food sure adds up in pack weight.

Some of the companies to use for the above services include:

• Outback Elite – we used these guys and were super happy with their service
• LTTS (Larapinta Trail Trek Support)
• 100% Adventure

and more!

People often complain that these services are expensive, however when you take into account the cost of fuel needed to drop these boxes out there, or pick someone up, it would cost quite a lot to do it yourself. It would also take a long time, so if you don’t have time up your sleeve before and after your hike these services are a great option.

For us it was important to have bulk calories, fibre and protein with each of our meals and throughout the day. As we don’t own a dehydrator, and didn’t want to use up too much of our limited pre-hike spare time buying one, creating multiple meals and then packaging them we opted for supermarket bought items. We also crammed this hike into Sean’s limited holiday time mid year, so flew into and out of Alice with our hiking packs – limiting the amount of food we could realistically pack with us on the plane. As a result, we bought most of our hiking food from the major supermarkets in Alice. Here is an example of what we ate most days on the trail. I’m a vegetarian and Sean eats everything so there are options here for everyone.Breakfast:

• Homemade porridge mix – we make this before hitting the trails, it’s oats, nuts, fruit, seeds etc – everything we can think of basically
  • Oats, linseeds, walnut, pepitas, shredded coconut, sultanas, dried apple, hemp seeds etc the possibility are endless
• Instant coffee and tea – we opt for instant coffee so that we don’t have to carry the grounds out with us

Lunch:

• Wraps
  • Sean has tuna – you can buy packets at the supermarket that are mixed with beans and vegetables
  • Bec has peanut butter or cheese – we packed some hard cheese and it survived very well! Early on in the hike we had carrots and cucumber also that I put on the wraps as well.
  • Nutella wraps as a sweet treat!

Dinner:

• Noodles with vegetables and protein
  • Indomie Mi Goreng noodles as we like the flavour, but you could use anything here
  • Dehydrated Peas – bought at Woolworths
  • Dehydrated vegetable mix – found a company online who sells it in bulk!
  • TVP – Textured Vegetable Protein (If you have no idea what this is, google it)
  • Soy Protein Puffs
• There are also loads of other dinner options at supermarkets, think mac & cheese, carbonara, cous cous etc, and all for a fraction of the “just add water” dehydrated meals available from specialised outdoor companies.

Snacks:

• Muesli Bars
• Cheese sticks
• Chocolate
• Sesame Snaps
• Fruit Straps
• Biscuits
• Beef Jerky & biltong

Something else to note about food on the Larapinta Trail and your food drops is to pack some fun things (that may be heavier) in your drop boxes! We had a few things in there in particular which were super yum to when we got to our re-supply points!

• Hard cheese (it lasts!)
• Fruit Cake (or similar, it’s dense so it’s heavy but its yum!)
• Potato chips
• Fizzy drinks
• Fresh fruit – apples, oranges, things that won’t go off after a couple days!

Below is a report of my time on the Larapinta with my husband in June 2023.We hiked over 9 days, averaging around 25-30km a day. This is faster than most people do it, and to be completely transparent I probably wouldn’t recommend doing it this quickly unless you’re an experienced light-weight hiker (as in carrying a light pack, which we were not). Without sounding like a dickhead, both my husband and I are both pretty fit (we both run 60+km a week plus other activities). We found this distance to be about the max we’d like to be doing each day with an average sized pack on this terrain. Whilst it’s absolutely possible to go either faster or slower, we had an amazing time and this pace felt right for us. I think that more time on the trail for most people would allow you to soak in the trail a littler more, as well as hit all the epic side trips. As we’ve been to the West McDonnell Ranges multiple times before this trip we didn’t need to do the side trips as we’ve done them all previously so this allowed us to do it in 9 days pretty easily.That being said, it’s up to you how long you take. We met people doing the hike over 3 weeks with multiple rest days, and we heard of people doing it in as little as 7 days. I guess that’s one of the cool things about hiking and the outdoors; as long as you’re outside the way you travel doesn’t matter, and you can choose your own adventure.

Day 2 begun with breakfast down at Simpsons Gap. We were lucky enough to have the special spot to ourselves for half an hour whilst we drunk our instant coffee, ate our porridge and watched the rock wallabies. We headed back to camp and packed up our belongings. After a little bit of rain overnight the day looked to be clear and warm. 

The morning of day 3 started out very fresh. We woke up to temperatures below zero and frost on everything. We’d heard lots of dingoes overnight at camp which is always pretty magical.After a slow breakfast and coffee (hard to do much quickly in gloves) we packed up our gear and headed off from Jay Creek. Our destination for the day was Brinkley Bluff, a summit camp at 1200m. However, to get there we had to first go via Standley Chasm and pick up our first food drop, which would add substantially to the weight of our packs.

The walk from Jay Creek to Standley was stunning. Lots of climbing and lots of epic views. 

Once we arrived at Standley to collect our boxes we were lucky enough to grab a quick shower (bloody heavenly after a couple days without). So we both showered and then went about sorting out the supplies we’d packed in our boxes.
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Once we’d sorted our new supplies we begun the trek up to Brinkley Bluff. It was a beautiful Sunny day, which was awesome but added to the difficulty of the climb with a very full pack. ​We were rewarded with more stunning views along the ridge on the way to the bluff.
​The hike up to Brinkley from Standley is solid, and this combined with our full packs and the late afternoon heat really got to Sean. He was pretty buckled by the time we set up the tents, and this was definitely the lowest mental point for either of us on the trail.

Holy Dooley day 4 was a beauty! And hard! We woke up early for sunrise on top of Brinkley. It was another gorgeous clear day and as we were at 1200m the sun was up early. We enjoyed coffee and porridge, just to shake it up (haha), and packed up our gear. The day started with a descent down from Brinkley. Hiking up steep shit is hard, but hiking down steep rocky terrain is even harder. Especially with a pack when you’re not completely used to it. Luckily we were rewarded with epic views all the way down. We had a quick recess break and made our way on to Section 4/5 Junction where we filled up our water and set off for Hugh Gorge. 

The trail to Hugh Gorge is beautiful and difficult! Lots of climbing and lots of hiking along river beds, which is always hard and slow as it’s rocky and fiddly to walk on, especially with heavy packs. It’s wild how long it can take to go just a couple of kilometres. Although difficult, this section was amazing and went through some really unique gullies and microclimates and rated up there with our favourite parts of the hike.

The trail down from Windy Saddle into the gorge is pretty spectacular, and was some of our favourite terrain on the trip.

Not long before reaching the Hugh Gorge campsite there is a water crossing. You can either climb around a sketchy little traverse on some slippery rocks whilst carrying your pack on one side of the water, or you can get wet. Whilst I’m sure our mates who climb would have had no trouble with the first option, we went with option 2. There is a rock ledge that you can climb up on before jumping down into what was for us some shallower water. With two people this makes it easy to keep your packs out of the water, as one person jumps in, and the other can pass the packs down. This would be tricky when hiking solo as the jump down is from fairly high onto a hard to see sandbar, which could be sketchy with a pack.Once we’d made it through the water we only had a few kilometres to go until camp. We arrived just before sunset, set up our tent, ate our noodles and enjoyed a well deserved sleep.

Yet again, another big day!

Day 5 was our longest day in kilometres on the trail thus far. We were headed from Hugh Gorge to Udepata / Ellery Creek North, a flat-ish almost 30km stretch. We tried out a different food strategy today and decided to wake up, pack up our gear and head off before breakfast so that we could have a little mid-morning breakfast stop along the way. We did this so it would be a little cooler when covering the earlier kilometres, and thus we’d have less walking in the middle of the days heat. Although with a 30km stretch there was going to a lot of walking at all times of the day.

We stopped for breaky at Ghost Gum Flat about 8km into the day. There was a picnic table which is always easier than setting up on the ground, and to be honest, feels quite fancy to come across by day 5. We had porridge and coffee (obviously) and then headed off again.​We carried on to Rocky Gully for lunch and water refills before setting off again. It was the hottest day we’d have on the trail.We arrived at Udepata / Ellery Creek North around 3pm, just in time for a swim and to set our tent up in the river bed. We’ve visited Ellery Creek South (aka Big Hole) which has a drive in campsite on prior trips to Alice so it was nice to have the option to camp on the northern side, where Larapinta walkers are separated from the rest of the public.

​We then had a much needed dip in the water, which was f***ing freezing, but felt bloody good on our legs. After our swim, nice and clean, we got ourselves changed into warmer gear, refilled our water, cooked up some dinner and watched the sun set. Another delightful day!

We woke up early and packed the tent in the dark. The day ahead was long and given the weather forecast was only getting worse we wanted to get as far ahead of it as we could. The weather has rolled in overnight and there was a little rain whilst we slept, however nothing near the predicted 30-60ml. The day begun travelling through Inarlanga Pass. The pass was used as a gateway through the Heavitree Range. It was beautiful with towering red rock and cycads lining it. The pass has been used by indigenous Australians for thousands and thousands of years and felt really special to pass through.Once through the pass, on a clear day, there are views of Sonder, however as there was a lot of cloud cover we could only see the foot of it. We were lucky as thus far in to our day we hadn’t had any rain so although we didn’t get the view, we weren’t complaining.

​Ormiston Gorge is a favourite camp spot for a lot of Larapinta Hikers. The gorge itself is stunning, as is the optional side trip of the Pound Walk. We didn’t do that this time as we’ve been to Ormiston a couple of times before and done the walk previously. Also the weather didn’t make leaving the shelter a very enticing idea. Another great thing about Ormiston is there are HOT showers. An absolute treat after days of hiking, and even more so after getting soaked. We had our showers and then indulged in a couple of the treats we had in our drop box, kettle chips and fresh fruit (oranges and apples because not much else would last being in a box for a week).That night was our first and only camp in the shelter itself. As it was so wet not having to set up our tent in the rain was excellent. We rolled out our mats and sleeping bags on the shelter platforms, along with all the other campers that night, 7 of us in total, and fell asleep!

After a couple of coffees and lunch we set off again. Our original plan on this day had been to stay up on the summit of Hilltop Lookout – a favourite of many walkers due to its incredible views of Mount Sonder. However due to the wind and rain it was pretty miserable up there, and there was no view at all, just a whole lot of fog. So when we reached the top we decided to hustle onwards to the next camp spot with water available, Rocky Bar Gap.Although the weather was funky this day, it was pretty incredible to see the desert and ridges shrouded in fog. We felt we could appreciate it as we’d had a mix of weather throughout our time on the trail thus far. I can imagine being a little disappointed if your entire hike had this kind of weather, especially a desert hike.Another big day, and our second last one. Tomorrow we’d head to Redbank Gorge before finishing the Larapinta trail by summiting Mount Sonder. Word on the street was that we had a clear weather window so we hoped we’d get views from the top of Sonder!

The final day of our Larapinta Trek arrived, and damn we got lucky. Although still overcast in the morning there wasn’t any rain, which led us to believe that maybe we could get lucky and get views from the top of Mt Sonder when we summited it that afternoon. We packed up our tent, made some breakfast, porridge and instant coffee to shake it up, and then begun the 11km hike to Redbank Gorge, our final campsite of the hike. The beauty of camping at Redbank, and also heading out to Mt Sonder from there is that you can hike up Sonder without your pack, something that feels incredible after carrying it everywhere for over a week. Once we arrived at Redbank the top of Sonder was still shrouded in mist. If we climbed up too early we wouldn’t get a view, so we decided to have some lunch and wait for the clouds to clear. 

After lunch we could see the top of Sonder poking through and we’re even treated to some partial blue skies. We decided to take our chances and head off. The return trip to Sonder was about 16km, a distance that without our packs should take around 3 hours, even with the vertical gain. We set off with a bottle of water each and some emergency supplies (snake bandage, Garmin inReach & Nutella wraps).The hike up to Sonder rose over 600m from Redbank Gorge, so was by no means easy terrain. However without our packs on we felt light as anything and it was a fun and beautiful hike!

We reached the top with clear views of the surrounding area, we couldn’t believe how lucky we’d been with the weather window. We met people along the way on their way back down who hadn’t had any views from the top at all. I guess thai made up for missing out on the views at the top of Hilltop the previous day.​

We took it all in and enjoyed the view for a minute, but it was bloody cold up there in the wind so we ate our Nutella wraps and hightailed it back down pretty quickly. We reached camp again later and had an awesome last sunset with a few of the crew who were also camping at Redbank.One of the epic things about doing these sorts of adventures is the people you meet along the way. You’re generally guaranteed to get to spend time with some pretty likeminded individuals in an environment you all thrive in, and it’s really bloody awesome!​

Let me know in the comments below if you think there is any information I missed about hiking the Larapinta Trail that you’d be interested in!