GUIDE TO THE RIVER LOYNE
NAME OF RIVER: River Loyne.
WHERE IS IT?: Flowing out of Loch Loyne by the A87, about 15 miles west of Invermoriston on on the A887.
Map.
PUT-INS/ TAKE-OUTS: We put in on the A87 road bridge at NH211085 and took out on the A87 road bridge over the River Moriston at NH211085.APPROX LENGTH: 3 km.
TIME NEEDED: It was supposed to be a quick run but it took us 3 hours with lots of lengthy inspection!
ACCESS HASSLES: See the SCA Access notes on Scotland.
WATER LEVEL INDICATORS: We ran it at what looked like a bit more than bank full, the bases of the trees at the get in were under water. The SCA guidebook recommended that it should rain lots, then rain some more so that the dam was releasing.
GRADING: The guide book said 4 with one 5. The two grade 4 drops looked to be towards the harder end of grade 4. The guide book also mentions grade 3 near the start, which we thought was harder than grade 3! It's all opinion I suppose.
MAJOR HAZARDS/ FALLS: The first drop mentioned in the guidebook has an undercut left hand wall which we didn't fancy, so portaged. The second drop is quite rocky but went fine down the left. The grade five drop looked harsh down the far right line but was ok sneaked down the left.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: A fantastic river!
The river starts flat for a short while through trees and under a high fence. It then picked up to grade 3 increasing to 4 with few large eddies, there were a few drops we thought worthy of inspection since we had little idea of what might lie ahead.
The first drop mentioned in the guidebook is then reached. The left hand wall looked quite undercut, and the right hand route meant getting your boat across the flow into a 1' wide channel to avoid being swept left so we decided to walk round.
A short distance further on is the second drop mentioned in the guide book.
The river divided round a rock island. The river right route looked nasty with a jutting rock at face level. The river left route was a rocky double drop, the second drop being a rocky slot. We took the river left route close to the left hand wall which for me was a bit of a rock bash!
The third drop is reached to the right of an island with trees, and was quite spectacular, graded 5 in the book (called McRaes falls I think). It was a rougly 10 metre high fall with four ledges between top and bottom.
Most of the water pushed down river right into a rocky messy looking corner, then down from right to left down a chute with some awesome power. We sneaked down a rocky 'chicken chute' on the far left, graded 5- in the book, missing the corner and dropping into the top of the powerful chute.
After this there was a small drop on river right with a rock at the bottom, which ran fine, then read and run style rapids and a stretch of flat led down to the confluence with the Moriston.
The final rapid was a straight forward chute with which we ran left of middle over a small ledge then through the middle of the lower part. A short flat paddle then led to the egress bridge.
OTHER NOTES: The guidebook mentioned was "Scottish Whitewater: The SCA Guidebook"
CONTRIBUTED BY: Graham Roberts with the Warwick University Kayak Club.
