Day 3 West Highland Way - Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel to Ardlui

Tuesday, June 28, 2022 - Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel to Arlui around mile 39.3, 11.8 miles

When I was researching the West Highland Way I discovered that hands down the third day is supposed to be the hardest. It is the day that the most people quit. I was to discover for myself why this is.

I slept well and woke up feeling ready for the day. We went downstairs and had breakfast in the hostel dining room. They had cereal, eggs, toast, oatmeal, cheese, fruit, croissants and other things. It was a lovely breakfast and I sat with Lauren from England and talked about her hiking plans for the day. At the table next to us sat a group of men wearing matching shirts. In response to my query, they said that they were hiking the trail in four days as a fundraiser in honor of a child named Maddy who had died of some kind of rare disease. I tried to look up their charity at justgive.org but I was unable to figure out exactly what it was. I wished them luck on their venture.

I took a quick stroll around the hostel and wished I had not been so tired last night. The view from their windows of Loch Lomond was stunning. But we needed to pack up and get moving. It was raining steadily and we had a decision to make. Do we take the low route or the high route? Because of the rain that was forecasted to last all day, we decided to go with the high route. It was a less dangerous route than the low, especially in these conditions. The high route is actually a former military road and avoided several miles of steep, slippery trail conditions.

Today was an exercise in foot/eye coordination as I tried to stay out of the wet and mud. Eventually I gave up and just walked through all the puddles. I was wearing my waterproof socks, which were not waterproof. However, they acted a bit like a wetsuit. They allowed the water within them to warm up and so although I was wet, my feet were not cold.

Gloomy views of Loch Lomond

The high route road

And back down to Loch Lomond we go

Up I go again. Rinse and repeat all day.

It rained all day. The creeks and streams rose and became raging torrents across the trail on their way down to the lake. I was grateful for my hiking poles to help me cross them. After four miles the low and high routes merged again and we ran into a group of hikers that we'd met at the hostel who had elected to take the low route. Their description of their experience reinforced the wisdom of our decision to stick with the high route.

Three miles later we crossed a raging stream with a nice bridge over it right before we arrived at the Inversnaid Hotel.

The Inversnaid Hotel is a very nice hotel that was once a hunting lodge for the Duke of Montrose. Because so many West Highland Way hikers stop there they have a separate entrance for the hikers with a room with tables and electrical plug ins to charge electronics. Hikers eat in the bar if they want to order a hot meal, not the hotel dining room. We had to leave our packs on large wooden shelves at the hikers entrance and take our shoes and boots off and walk around in our socks inside the hotel, which seemed odd but I'm sure helped save their carpets from mud. Outside was a faucet for filling water bottles.

Hiker lunch room at Inversnaid

Since it was about noon the place was packed with hikers. Pounce and I ordered hot meals in the bar to help us warm up. I had steak pie with chips and a half pint. As usual, the food was delicious. When lunch was over I returned to find my pack completely soaked from the wet things that dripped down from the shelves above. Back out into the rain we went. Our goal was to stay at Doune Bothy in about four miles. A bothy is a building that typically provides shelter from the rain. It usually has a fireplace and fire wood. As we hiked along we discussed our hope that someone had started a fire and that it would be warm and dry when we arrived.

The trail was slippery, wet, rooty and rocky with some steep ups and downs as it wound beside the lake's rocky shoreline. The relentless rain meant almost no views. There were several places on the trail that felt pretty sketchy but because of the rain and the necessity to keep moving I did not get pictures of most of those places.

All that rain does keep things green

There were several staircases like these

The trail was very tough ups and downs over slippery rocks and close to Rob Roy's Cave the midges made an appearance and feasted on my legs. Eventually the bothy came into view. I was soaked to the skin and longing for a warm fire and a place to get dry.

Doune Bothy in the distance

Doune Bothy

Sadly, our hopes of a warm fire were not to be. Someone had left the cabin door open and the floor was flooded from the rain. There was no firewood and it was cold, dank and dark. Quite honestly, the place made my skin crawl.

We set up our stoves on a table and heated up some water to make some hot tea. Another group of hikers tromped in so we were unable to change into any dry clothes. My head was spinning and I began to text my husband on my Garmin. 

I carry an InReach Garmin with me when I hike because John, my husband, likes to see where I am. I turn my Garmin on track mode when I begin hiking and half a world away he watches on his computer as I move up the trail. When I stop for the day I send him a message that I am safe and stopping for the night. It has an SOS feature in case of a true emergency but it also allows me to text and email certain people through a satellite. The only problem is that you have to toggle to each letter to text. I sent him a text and asked him to find us a room at Ardlui, the closest place with lodging. Without wifi I could not look up anything myself.

Texting John on my Garmin inside Doune Bothy

We decided to start hiking the mile to the ferry to Ardlui in case he found a place for us and as we hiked we found a nice camping spot by the lake. We had not heard back from John so I sent him a text that we had found a place to camp for the night. He texted back frantically, "No, I found you a room! Go to the ferry!" The ferry ran only once an hour and we hiked as fast as we could to get there on time. We could see the boat coming across the lake and we ran the last bit down to the dock. Another couple was there waiting for the ferry boat as well. The boat captain sent the other hiker back up to lower the flag that he had raised to indicate that someone was there to take the ferry and we each paid five pounds for the ride across the lake to the hotel. 

The ferry boat to Ardlui

So happy to be on the boat to Ardlui!

When I learned about Ardlui in my research I thought it was a bustling town. Turns out it is one hotel with a restaurant and a car campground. I could not believe that he was able to get us a last minute room. Turns out it was the nicest room at the hotel, and the most expensive, which is probably why it had not been booked. Quite honestly, I would have paid double the price of what I did pay because I was so desperate to get warm and dry. Every single thing in my pack was wet except for my sleeping bag which I keep stored in a dry sack.

King size bed with a fireplace

A copper tub in the large sitting room

Trying to dry out all my stuff

We hung things on the heated towel bars in the bathroom to dry and Pounce figured out how to turn on the radiator so she could dry her shoes on it. Hers got soaked the last half mile in a stream ford.  I warmed up with a hot shower and then I called John to thank him for getting us a room. He is my eye-in-the-sky trail angel!

The toughest day of the hike was over and we had survived. We ate dinner in the bar downstairs and I had salad and fish patties with a well deserved hard cider. The comfy king bed was calling our names and I collapsed into bed and slept like a log.