Luss Water with Low Water

Aka the lies of wheresthewater.com

Five intrepid boaters met in the overcast South Queensferry Tesco with a plan to go paddle something or other. The decision was taken to head up to the Luss Water, the wheresthewater gauge was saying the river was high and should be good to go.

Not really knowing much about the Luss I said ‘ok cool’ and jumped in the car, casually flicking through the guide book to find out what we’re in for: grade 4 some 4+  “a serious undertaking at very high flows” was pretty much all I read before closing the guidebook and pretending I hadn’t seen it.

Five boat one car shuttle

As it turned out I needn’t have worried, when we arrived at the putin it was pretty clear flow were not exactly high, definitely enough to float but not enough worry about. We all jumped into Laura’s car for  a cheeky 5-boats-on-one-car shuttle, up to the putin. Usually the Mollochan Burn is slid down in to the Luss however it was looking little low for that so we trekked down to the confluence, I was wishing I’d put on less thermals.

At the low levels it was a bit of a pin fest in places and I was perfecting the ‘spin on a rock and go down backwards’ line. We got out to inspect the hardest rapid on the run, a chute into a rooster tail with a curtain pushing you into a boily wall just above a second drop.  I bravely let everyone else go first.

Some took better lines that others, Derek and Alan both rolling over the lip second drop, looked particularly nasty.  I managed the rapid head dry but with a slightly swollen thumb from punching the wall (no pictures of me = I can pretend I styled it ;-)

(If anyone wants them the full sequence of photos can be found here)

 

Various lines, clockwise from top: Laura skirts under the curtain, Steve makes it look a bit too easy, Alan being pushed over by the curtain, Derek upsidedown on the lip

After some more interesting drops we arrived at Luss falls; a tree filled undercut gorge. We all portaged. Steve and Alan paddled on to probe the next drop, I’m not sure exactly what happened, other than from the top all we could see was a river left bush waving wildly around. Steve the appeared on the bank with Alan’s paddles signalling to go right.

Nasty looking strainer on the gorge

We carried on through the short gorge before the river opened up into a weir followed shortly after we saw the road bridge signalling the end of the section. The Luss Water is a lovely scenic run, definitely keen to come back, but maybe with a little more water next time!

Funtimes on Luss Water