Portage-ing (SP?) with pack?????

“How????

Hey all,

I'm headed of to Rollins Pond high Adventure base this summer; I hope. Last time I was there I was like 13 and took the easy trekk where we hung around only in saranack lake. Now I want to return with a vengence and my new venture crew. We will be looking for a hard trekk, but that puts us on multiple lakes. How do you portage a cannoe with 6 days of gear??? ANy good sites?”

“how to portage a canoe...? what kind of question is that, maybe it's legit to someone that's never seen a canoe, it just seems so trivial to me...

Well, i suppose you can portage a canoe with a pack on, i usually don't though, but it is possible, with 6 days of gear, you can fit everything for 2 people nearly into one duluth pack - portaging is so much easier than backpacking, so one person takes a 60 lb duluth pack, and the other a canoe, which isn't so bad, try a 80 lb duluth pack while tumping a 30 lb barrel.. n/m. 36 days of gear is another story. 6 days is a nice easy trip, and let me tell you, canoeing is a whole nother story than backpacking - i've been a canoer most of my life, and backpacking has just kind of been off to the side, any other questions, just ask, i don't want to sound too cocky or anything, but i'll know most anything about the general sport of canoeing, wilderness canoeing, white water canoeing, expedition canoeing, whitewater wilderness expedition canoeing... then i got tired of it and needed something new, gut it's a great sport, and have enjoyed my years, thousands of miles in a canoe :)”

“Tea:
I've done it with a 7 day pack on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Fortunately, the longest portage was a mile with very little elevation gain. At first we tried with our packs on, but since the canoes were rented and HEAVY, we gave up on that (plus our rifles were hard to carry that way) What we did was to first carry the canoes, then go back and get our packs. We tried putting our gear in the canoe and carrying everything but that was too hard. Some people carry a light weight cart, but our outfitter did not have any, also, a yoke will save your shoulders.

See www.alaska.net/~northlit/ for some good pictures of canoeing.
Also http://alaskaoutdoorjournal.com/Activities/Canoe/canoekp4.html”

“Ok, Simmer, your will never be cocky in my book if you can back it up.

Savage, thanks for the advise, same to you Simmer. But remeber guys, this is a Boy Scout thing, we don't have high tech fiber glass or lightweight plastic, but heavey aluminum.”

“portaging a canoe...try portaging it for 6 of 8 miles with a full pack and a 65 lb Siberian husky.

your short portages will be a breeze, so stop whining and just do it. Have fun...”

“lol, i've had some interesting encounters w/ boyscouts in the wilderness... i won't say anything degrading, i know we have boyscouts in here, and i'm sure you're troops are great, but i've met some... 'interesting' troops out there, lol”

“stikky will be forever famous for the "Unintentional Portage"...”

“We've done Quetico and Boundary Waters--mostly Quetico--2 people in each canoe. We did the, relatively, short, portages in two trips, as did most everyone else we saw. Empty the canoe(s), the canoe, paddles and PFDs were carried by one person other person carried a pack and camera, etc. Second trip carried the rest of the gear. (When, we're canoeing weight is less of a concern that backpacking.) Could do it in one trip but we're looking for fun and not to kill ourselves.”

“Make two trips, try and find a drybag that'll hold all of your gear, and has shouder straps, or one that will fit into your backpack. It's alot easier carrying the gear on your back than in your hands.

Birch and I portaged our boat together (old heavy 17.5 ft fibreglass), then went back for
our gear and paddles. The longest we've ever had to portage was just a few hundred feet, over a dam. I think we'd probably do it the same way if it were a longer distance.”

“"weight is less of a concern while canoeing than backpacking" now that's an understatement. Never while backpacking have i carried barrels to keep my fresh vegetables fresh, a shotgun to keep the bears away, or a 20 lb bug tent to keep the bugs away (worked like a charm btw), dry bags to keep everything dry, camera/tripod for pictures, extra chairs for camp, i've even taken coolers canoeing - which i suppose isn't a big deal for backpacking to some...
but he's got it, pretty much, i still think 6 days worth of gear can be done in a single trip pretty easily, but 2 trips is no problem, unless you run into the grand portage, which is more of a backpacking trip than a canoeing trip, lol.
Unload everything from the caone - one person can carry a pack and some extra gear(water bottles, paddles, camera, etc.), wear your life jackets. and If you need help, get one other person to help u up the canoe, lift it up to your outside leg, cradle it in your bottom arm, count to three, and rotate it up onto your shoulders, assuming you have a yolk, carrying a canoe is pretty easy, if you get tired, let the back end of the canoe down onto the ground and have somebody give you a 'bridge' or set the canoe in the crook of a tree for a 'posé.' To let it down just do the opposite of how u got it up, and set it gently in the water. Remember: the bottom of the canoe only touches the water of the lake, your legs, the air, and the occassional rising pizza crust, never the ground, rocks, trees etc, if you can help it. That will make your canoe last a lot longer, paddle better, and maybe even look nice :) did i forget anything?”

“"portaging" is such a nice word!”

“Yeah, but it's not on the same level as "wench", or "mount" for instance...”

“good point! newgirl-baiter.”

“Tea,
I did that with a girlfriend a few years ago. I'll get back to you.”

“It's just too much fun...”

“How many people are going, and how many canoes are you taking?

When I went, we had either two or three scouts per canoe. We also packed at least two people per Duluth pack. And that held everything including sleeping bags. We would get the real heavy trash bags, like the highway dept uses, find a cardboard box that would fit inside the plastic bag, and put in the Duluth pack. We would also bag the clothes and such. When we took bread, we smashed three loaves into one. We took cast iron griddles, cooking racks, dutch ovens, and more.

You should have no problem with two people per canoe and making one portage. Like simer said, wear your life jackets. One carry the canoe and paddles, and the other carry the Duluth pack and paddles. Not, each is carrying more than one paddle, trust me, some baffoon will break one or two somewhere along the way.

Sometimes you can carry the gear across the portage, and run the canoe down through the rapids, if you are experienced enough.”

“well, i'd say, if you only have little experience and encounter whitewater - it'd be best just to avoid it, my first time on a very small set of rapids, with no experience or training, i swamped... with hours of training and weeks of experience i'm fairly confident in what i can handle, and what to portage, what to scout etc... what i'm saying is just be careful, in the wilderness you may be days away from help, and you don't want to get hurt.”

“I've always used wheels. Over shorter distances, I've dragged my old coleman canoe. Usually we take an old aluminum or royalex canoe & use the wheels off of a garden cart. We ratchet strap them to the bottom of the canoe. We leave the gear right in the canoe & balence the weight. My hiking partner takes one end & I take the other. I've probably gone 500 miles like this over the years. It's easy on some roads & difficult on rocky terrain. We only had trouble off of Lows Lake (Adirondacks like Rolllins) where the rangers cut the blowdown (tree's knocked down by wind)too narrow & we had to lift it over the trees as we use a wide track. Canadian boat walkers mount the wheels completely under the canoe. We used pull-pins to disconnect the wheels at our next water source & place them in the canoe. Most portages are fairly short but I have rolled this canoe 10-12 miles thru the woods.”