Eight kilometres, a solid three hours with a stop for lunch, and not another walker on the track until I hit the carpark again — that was a Tuesday morning on the Black Glove walk in late April, and it's the kind of morning that sums up why I've stopped recommending the Perth Hills for anything between December and February. Perth Hills in autumn is a different proposition entirely. The heat's gone out of the ground, the jarrah's holding its colour instead of looking scorched, and you can actually hear something other than your own breathing on the climbs.
Why summer isn't the season for these trails
Summer in the hills is a different kind of walking altogether, and not the good kind. The ironstone holds heat long after the sun's dropped, there's next to no shade on the eastern-facing sections, and by 10am in January you're rationing water rather than enjoying the walk. If you want a genuinely good summer option, I'd point you toward the coast instead — I wrote up the ones that actually deliver in Perth summer coastal walks: the ones that actually work, and that's where the effort-to-reward ratio holds up when the mercury's over 35.
The hills in summer aren't dangerous exactly, but they're joyless, and there's also the small matter of closures. Which brings me to the bit most casual walkers don't think about until they've driven forty minutes for a locked gate.
Trail closures and why the timing isn't random
A good chunk of the Perth Hills network gets closed over summer for prescribed burning and fire risk management, and that's not a bureaucratic inconvenience, it's sensible land management given how this forest burns. The WA Dept. of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions publishes the closure notices and they're worth checking before you plan anything ambitious between November and March. Autumn is when most of that reopens, the burns are done, the risk's dropped, and the trails you couldn't touch in January are back on the table by April or May. I've turned up to a trailhead mid-summer with boots on and had to reroute on the spot and it's not a great start to a day.
What autumn actually changes on the ground
The soil firms up after the first proper rain but before the whole thing turns to mud, which is a narrower window than people assume. Wildflowers aren't the drawcard here that they are further north — Kalbarri's own shoulder season runs later, closer to true winter, so don't go into the hills expecting a carpet of colour in April, that's not what this season delivers. What it delivers is comfort. Sixteen to twenty-two degrees on a clear day, dry underfoot, and the granite outcrops aren't radiating heat back at you by lunchtime.
Birdlife picks up too, mostly because the birds are as relieved as you are that summer's over. Twenty-eight parrots and red-tailed black cockatoos both turn up more reliably on the ridgelines once the weather cools, though I'll admit I'm no ornithologist, I just notice when there's more noise in the canopy.
Grading it against the Bibbulmun Track
I measure most WA trails against the Bibbulmun, because it's the one everyone's either walked a section of or means to. Black Glove sits comfortably below anything you'd find on the Dwellingup-to-Collie stretch, difficulty-wise — it's a decent half-day leg-stretcher rather than a genuine test, and I'd put it closer to an easy Bibbulmun day section than a hard one. The Bibbulmun Track Foundation publishes section grades and distances if you want to compare properly, and I'd encourage anyone getting serious about hills walking to use that as the baseline rather than trusting a park sign's idea of "moderate", which in my experience is generous more often than not.
One rating I think is generous
Black Glove gets marked as family-friendly on most maps and I think that's a stretch. The rocky descent about two-thirds in is loose underfoot and steep enough that I saw a family turn back on it in April, kids in runners rather than proper shoes, which didn't help their case. It's not a hard walk by any real measure but "family-friendly" suggests a pram-pushing stroll and this isn't that, it's a bushwalk with a rough patch, and I'd rather people went in expecting that than got caught out on the descent with the sun going down.
What I carried and what stayed in the pack
Two water bottles rather than the three I'd carry in summer, merino hiking socks instead of the thicker winter pair, and the gaiters stayed in the boot of the car — autumn ground isn't wet enough yet to need them, that comes later once the winter rains properly set in. A light shell jacket earns its place though, hills weather turns quickly and a clear morning can cloud over by early afternoon with a cold wind picking up on the exposed ridges. I wore trail runners rather than boots for the Black Glove loop and had no regrets, though I'd swap back to boots for anything longer or rockier.
Building a weekend around it
The Perth Hills Discovery Centre and Campground in Mundaring is the obvious base if you want to string a couple of walks together over a weekend rather than doing the drive-in-drive-out day trip. It's central enough that most of the hills network is within a short drive, and the campground itself is comfortable without pretending to be more than it is.
If you're chasing a longer trip further afield once the hills cool off, autumn's also when the Goldfields become genuinely walkable rather than an exercise in enduring heat. The Kalgoorlie: Chunky Timbers and Tall Tales Walking Tour is worth building a long weekend around if you're heading that way, the temperature drop makes the whole town more pleasant to walk through, not just the trails outside it.
Autumn in the Perth Hills isn't spectacular in the way people expect scenery to be spectacular, and I won't oversell it — there's no single view that stops you in your tracks the way some of the south-west lookouts do. What it offers instead is comfort and access: trails that are open again, weather that doesn't punish you for being outdoors, and carparks that aren't full by 8am on a Saturday. That's not a small thing if you've spent a summer avoiding the hills altogether, and honestly, it's reason enough to put the boots back on.