West Highland Way, Day 4 Rowchoish Bothy to Ardlui (10.8 km, ↑ 432 m, ↓ 348 m)
Distance wise, today looks like yet another short day, but statistics can be deceiving.
We didn't rush at all. We had been warned by our guidebook, by internet comments, by someone we know who have hiked this part before. But somehow, in the light of a calm, beautiful morning overlooking the loch, we thought we would manage just fine. Instead, we took our time to munch on the breakfast rolls from the Ben's Bakery honesty box that we walked past after Rowardennan. This, combined with coffee and the view of Loch Lomond in the morning, makes the perfect morning.
I learned that some hikers on this trail are very early, and streams of hikers walked past the trail as we were sipping coffee and packing away our tent. We probably said around tens of good morning in that morning alone. "Beautiful spot!" one man called out without breaking his strides, reminding me how lucky I was to be here. There were cyclists too, whooshing past on the same dirt trail we were covering entirely on foot. I kept thinking about how on earth a bike navigates the myriad streams we had been hopping across yesterday, but apparently you can do that with bikes.
The unfortunate thing (or fortunate, depending on how you'd want to look at it) is that having the freedom to camp anywhere means you would likely be off sync with other hikers. Having done mostly hut-to-hut before, I was used to falling into the same rhythm with other hikers: you leapfrog each other across the day, end up at the same table for dinner, and sometimes stay in touch for years afterward and send each other Merry Christmas online greeting cards. So far, we have not really recognized anyone in particular, and realizing that we are breaking our Loch Lomond days into smaller chunks, we are probably behind other hikers who started on the day behind us. I already expected this when we decided to wild camp, but still it's definitely a new experience to see a stream of new faces every day.
After spending all of yesterday on the high route, we began the day by descending back to the shore. There were wild camping spots down here too, some so close to the water you could have rolled out of your tent and straight into the loch if the water is not too cold, which I believe was still the case at this time of year. We walked through wide fields of bluebells that I think will always remind me of this trail. So far, the terrain had not posed any challenges that I think would warrant it the reputation of being the most difficult part of the trail. I was starting to wonder if people had been exaggerating.
This remained true until we got to Inversnaid. We arrived in Inversnaid before lunch and decided to push on, reasoning that we'd make it to Ardlui in time to eat there.
Boy, were we wrong.
The gravel path out of Inversnaid was fine, but then the trail gradually morphed into various challenging shapes that we had not really seen before in the previous days. My guidebook has mentioned a lot of exposed tree roots and at first I thought it would be just like the regular tree roots you would encounter when you walk through a forest, but here it makes a more challenging terrain when you combine it with sharp inclines and awkwardly shaped rocks and boulders, especially with the loch sitting right there to your left, waiting patiently for anyone who slipped. I was so, so glad to have my poles and swore I would never go hiking without them again. They made the difference between navigating the boulders upright and having to scramble on all fours.
We were lucky, since this time the weather was perfect: sunny and completely dry, with the occasional mud that was still manageable. But had it been raining for a little bit, I could see how this section of the trail would be a completely different beast. Especially when you have a big backpack weighing on your back, this hike basically becomes a balance and strength challenge. We caught up with the man who had admired our campsite that morning, and we walked past him on the train - moments later, we heard him slip, falling sideways off the path. We checked on him and thankfully he seemed fine.
Writing this down, I might have made it sound more frightening than it actually is. The honest truth is that I loved it. Indeed, it is definitely not a trail that everyone can just casually walk past with a backpack. In every step, I have to make a decision: where to place my foot, which rock to trust, how to shift my weight. This kind of active engagement, I learned, for me is its own pleasure. I also noticed things I would have walked straight past on an easier path: the funky shapes of the tree trunks, the plants arranged by nature and time and the general wear and tear into something that looked almost intentional, like a garden designed by someone with very good taste and infinite patience. Before the trip, I had been reading Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time (which I did not particularly like, but that is another story), so the imageries of gardens had been in my mind a lot and to suddenly see it made real, here on the rocks and boulders above the loch, was its own unexpected pleasure. I didn't want this trail to end. The only thing that eventually got to me was the hunger, since we had nothing for lunch and Ardlui was still somewhere ahead.
Nevertheless, it was fun. More than that, I also felt strong in a way I had not quite expected. I got through the entire section with almost no scrambling, and somewhere in the middle of it I realized that all those mornings I had dragged myself out to exercise had actually amounted to something. That I had, without particularly noticing, become stronger. I always learn something new about myself on every hike, and this was a particularly good one to learn about.
We could see the loch narrowing down on both sides, and I sensed that we were indeed reaching the northern tip of the lake very soon. At some point, we also caught up with the folks who had been cycling the route, with heavy bikes hoisted over their shoulders. They had been carrying them this whole time, which I could not have imagined before seeing it, because the trail had been completely unnavigable by wheel.
Just before I thought that we were reaching the end of the trail, we were presented with a bridge that we had to climb:
And then finally, we came out onto a wide open beach where a crowd of hikers had collectively decided this was a good place to stop. I wasn't sure if we were through the worst yet, but we sat down anyway for water and to look back at the loch, trying to trace the path we had come from. The cyclists caught up with us shortly after, and we overheard fragments of their conversation: apparently one member of their group was furious. "If I had known this, I would not have chosen to do this," he had apparently said. Someone else jokingly added that the ferry was going to be the main topic at dinner. I think everyone on that beach was quietly commiserating and quietly celebrating at the same time.
We were right to celebrate. The trail smoothed out after that, leading us away from the loch and up a hill to another bothy and a derelict building sitting by the water. We continued on north, hoping that we would reach the Ardlui ferry port soon because we were hungry and could use some lunch. Our hotel was on the other side of the loch, and a short ferry crossing was the only way across.
What we had not accounted for was that the ferry runs every two hours at midday, not every hour, and we had missed it by ten minutes. So we waited on the beach for nearly two hours with no food whatsoever, which sounds worse than it was. We sketched, we did puzzles, we watched other hikers slowly gather at the port. Among them was the man who had admired our campsite that morning and then slipped - he seemed completely fine, and was delighted to find us there.
Two hours later the ferry arrived to pick us up and we were ushered to the hotel. I did not think this option would be a popular one - my guidebook says staying in Ardlui means avoiding the crowd - but I guess the trail was popular enough that even the less popular option was still, quite popular. And at least, it was nice to be in the same company of other hikers. Despite the ferry delay, we still had plenty of time to have some chips and cider, to do our laundry, and to even finally catch up with the trash TV that we had been watching before we left for our trip. Wild camping and all, we are still modern creatures, after all.