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GUIDE TO THE RIVER KIACHNISH NAME OF RIVER: Kiachnish. WHERE IS IT?: On the A82 just south of Fort William. PUT-INS/ TAKE-OUTS: Put-in at the end of the road leading from Fort Bill to Lochan Lunn Da-Bhra. Take-out where the river meets the A82 (and the sea). APPROX LENGTH: 6 miles. TIME NEEDED: 3 hours or more. ACCESS SITUATION: Unknown, but I don't think we made any friends by parking in the layby at the end of the big estate drive beside the take-out bridge, some fellow glared at us. WATER LEVEL INDICATORS: We paddled this high and bank-full from the Loch...apparently an easier trip is possible in lower water. It had rained non-stop for two days when we paddled. GRADING: 3 - 5. MAJOR HAZARDS/ FALLS: A weir, trees and a wire strand across the river. The long gorge in the centre section might want inspecting BEFORE you blunder into it (like we did for instance). The bridge marked about half-way through the trip on the map is half-way down this gorge. GENERAL DESCRIPTION: An amazingly continuous paddle! From the loch, grade 3-4 water leads over a 1 metre ledge. This eases to continuous grade 3 for some miles. Two hazards towards the end of this section are a wire fence across the river where a stream enters from the left and a small weir follows. After this, the banks steepen and the river becomes pool-drop grade 4. This gets progressively harder and inspection/ protection/ portage opportunities become more limited...before you know it, the river is grade 5 and it's too late to get out! The crux section begins with a long steep narrow shoot in which you must tackle a diagonal stopper (one of our group performed an accidental 'narrow gorge splat' here) and ends with an unwelcoming 12 foot+ waterfall giving a choice of gnarly right or pinny left. This last major fall is just upstream of a disused bridge. The gorge then eases to grade 4 and opens out before returning to grade 3. It isn't over however, there are a number of other grade 4 falls to look out for before the take-out. Kris Waring adds (24/2/00)...'Who has been hiding the Kiachnish for all these years!!!! We paddled the Kiachnish in relatively low water. At the get in the river looked scrapey but paddleable. What followed was a four hour exploration of some fine and incredibly continuous grade 3-4 (5) water. At this level, the initial half-mile is a bit of a scrape to the first fall, which runs easily down the middle. After this the banks close in and the river starts to wind its way through a series of ledges and boulderfields. This continued for some time with a few minor drops before stepping up a full grade as you enter the main gorge. Don't know where it comes from but the river quickly picks up volume on the way down. The wire Mark referred to was a good 8 feet above the water level on this occasion and came before the weir which had some nasty looking spikes protruding from it. At this level there is one obvious portage where all of the water funnels through a very narrow gap which has serious headbanging potential. We ran everything else and all but a few falls could be easily boat inspected. However, we encountered one extra fall right at the end of the gorge, again about 10 feet which left us with a few grazed elbows. There is also a sheep fence near the end of the gorge which may become covered in high water. This is a remarkable river which runs through a valley that, while only being three miles from the centre of Fort William, feels very remote. It reminded me very much of the River Nevis at a similar level where everything is challenging but not too pushy. Also, once in the gorge, portaging is often very difficult even at low levels. Can't wait to go back when it is up.' OTHER NOTES: We met a group on another river just after we'd paddled this, who sniffily observed, "You must have had much lower water levels than when we did the Kiachnish a few years ago - because we had an epic." From Andrew Walker...'On 01/01/2001 there was one single wire across the river towards the bottom of the gorge, which we just sneaked under in LW; and a tree which again could be sneaked around. There were no other obstacles, apart from several thousand large lumps of ice which caught us up after the frozen lake surface broke up in the thaw. We paddled this on snow melt while the Roy and Spean were still too low and frozen. At these lowish levels the river remains excellent, with two narrow shoots perhaps requiring portages. We carried the biggest drop near the bottom of the gorge, and shot the very last sizable drop down the boney lefthand shoot. 3 hours for our first descent with a few quick peeks ahead, and only one broken helmet...' CONTRIBUTED BY: Mark Rainsley, also Kris Waring and Andrew Walkers. |
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