Water levels in loch drop to reveal hidden glen

AN ARTIFICIAL loch created in the 1950s has been drained to reveal the lost glen beneath its surface.

Water levels have dropped low enough in Loch Glascarnoch to reveal a former road and bridges that connected Inverness and Ullapool. Picture: Hemedia

Loch Glascarnoch, near Garve, in the Scottish Highlands, has supplied water to Mossford hydro power station since 1957.

But operators SSE have now manually lowered the water level ahead of the winter months where daily increases of more than one metre are common.

With the water level now at its lowest, structures previously hidden, including an old road, bridge, and telegraph polls, are now visible again.

Glascarnoch and its dam form part of SSE’s Conon hydro-electric scheme with water travelling through an 8km long tunnel to the dam’s turbines.

A spokesman for SSE said: “As we head into the winter we’ve pulled the level down because the rain we usually get in October and November can raise the levels up by as much as one metre a day.”