Day 3 of our 8 day West Highland Way trek is in the books and let me tell you it was a doozy! Notoriously the hardest day on the trail and it lived up to its reputation, big style! Ouch!
The day started with a full crew breakfast at the Clansmen Bar (part of the Rowardennan Hotel where we stayed) with all kinds of chat about what to expect on the trail. Words like strenuous and torturous were being read from guide books. Yikes. But hey, nae bother, we got this – let’s get it done!
The crew tacking the trail today headed out at 830am with about 3km warm up before we decided on if we would take the low road (said to be hardest with lots of bouldering) or the high road (said to be the way to go for Loch views) for the first half of the day. In the end we split the uprights so we could get the best of both worlds! Half up and half down.
Myself, Niki and Shar decided on low road and off we set ready for the challenge ahead!
The low road was easier than I remember than the last time let me tell you. Lots of fun skinny trails on the edge of the 2m or 30m drop to the Loch, lots of rocks to climb up and over or down, a couple of scrambles, a few bridges and a bunch of stream crossings. All good fun on a dry day with all the time in the world – yahoo us!
The high road crew surprised us by popping down to the beach on the low road where is low-readers would be passing by for a fantastic lunch break! Amazing views and awesome company – yes please. We all had packed lunches from the Hotel the night before so felt like little school kids excited to see what ‘mom packed for us today’. Sadly no chocolate bar but yummy cookies!
After our not so brief beach stop we finished off the morning on more undulating forest track, with some good and steep up and down hills to manage. Nothing horrible, especially as we passed waterfall after waterfall – the pretty stuff helps put the hard work in perspective.
We stopped at Inversnaid Hotel (half way on todays’s 22km trek to enjoy some more of our packed lunches and snacks on the lawn overlooking the Loch again. We could not get enough of this view. Today we would say good bye to Loch Lomond and move into our venture into Glen Coe our mod mountainous are – so we soaked it in!
After lunch (and a quick group photo, of course) we heading out to finish the last of the trek on the shore of the Loch. Now, full disclosure, this is when the trail got real-real.
Do NOT let anyone tell you the ‘low road’ between Rowardennan and Inversnaid is hardest, it’s not easy but it’s a doddle (in my opinion) compared to the next 2+ hours we would be spending horizontal scrambling up and over rocks on the precipice of the Loch! Squeezing between rocks and trees, between rocks and rocks, crossing streams and mud and all kinds of trail fun! Mind you, this was not a day for bad knees and darn it half the time the hinges on my knee brace were just wide enough to get stuck where I needed to precariously put my foot. Growl!
Having said that, it was all very fun and beautiful when if loads of work! We were all smiling but also ready for the chance to just walk on something flat for even a few steps.
On the second last beach of this section of trail we lost two of our crew .. the Newfoundland twins just could not resist the siren call of a large body of cool water on a hot day. We left them to dip in and meet up with us later.
And then there were 5, all keen to see the end of this stone scramble staircase shenanigan so we high tailed it through that last section of the stoney trail – taking one last photo at the end of the Loch to celebrate saying goodby to that particular flavor of trail hell.
From there the trail flattened (a little) under foot and wow the views opened right up to such amazing hills – the pictures just cannot do justice to how majestic it all was!
We made quick-ish work of the last section though bracken (pictured above) and forest track for another 2 hours. We were pacing very fast on this last stint – excited to finally find our way to the Drover’s Inn, today’s finish line.
The Drover’s Inn is a pub and hotel established in 1705 and has all the makings of a haunted stay! The Wi-Fi password even has the word Haunted in it! Rob Roy allegedly stayed here when avoiding arrest (there is a room named Rob Roy). I had the pleasure of staying there when I did the West Highland Way the first time in 2008 – an amazing stay but a little ghostie creepy.
After a quick bite and a quick pint or two, our transport arrived to drive us to our B&Bs in Tyndrum for the night. We deserved showers, feet up and a good sleep after the trail work we put in today. Wow!
The stats:
- Trail: West Highland Way, Scotland
- Day: 3/8 Finished!
- To/From: Rowardennan/Tyndrum
- Start/Finish time: 8:36am/6:11pm
- Distance: 22km (23.8km Hiiker)
- Steps: 30,355
- Terrain: stone steps and bouldering and up and down and crawl and ouch – today is notoriously the toughest day of the Way and it did not disappoint
- Weather: 22C blue skies, a few clouds to start and finish the day but otherwise it was wow!
- Breaky: full Scottish breakfast
- Lunch n Snacks: cheese and pickle sandwich with crisps trail side, naked skittles, cookie, almonds
- Dinner: haggis, neeps and tatties
- Pints: 3
- Tonight’s home: Tigh na Fraoch (heather’s house in Gaelic)
- Mood: smiling
- Body: shaking legs after all that work, and sore arms using my hiking poles to full advantage but good sore not pain
- Highlights: weather was amazing, our hiking crew today was perfection
- Lowlights: tics
- People of interest: the lady in reception at Rowardennan telling ghost stories
- Spontaneous dancing: nope
- Deep thoughts: just keep swimming
Day 4 we walk from Inverarnan (where Drover’s Inn is) to Tyndrum! Stay tuned.
Brande
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