Single Trip Carry Portage Techniques

This topic is directed to members that single trip carry their canoe and equipment across portages while wilderness canoe camping or are interested in doing so. I am not interested in debating the advantages or disadvantages but I would like to explore the challenges and solutions encountered by others.

I enjoy the journey more than the destination while wilderness camping. I allow for weather related layover days but prefer to stay on the move. I like to travel and camp efficiently and prefer to single carry my canoe and equipment across portages.

Food is the most challenging item for me to address with regard to one trip portaging. My equipment requirements are relatively constant, the equipment I require for 1 night is the same or similar to what I require for multiple nights and therefore the pack size and weight stay relatively constant. However, food requirements increase as the days increase and I find food to be the most challenging to select and efficiently pack.

I separate items into 3 areas for transporting, my canoe including canoe related items, my backpack including camp related items and my food pack including food related items. I take lightweight compact equipment and modify it if necessary for efficient packing. I rig the canoe, backpack and food pack for quick easy transitions from water to land and for comfortable carry across the portage.

One technique I find beneficial is rigging the canoe so that I can quickly secure my paddles and PFD's to it. I use nylon cord with cord locks to secure the paddles to the thwarts and the PFD's under the seats. It is important that the location of my attached equipment does not adversely affect the balance of the canoe while being carried. My goal is to transport the canoe and all my equipment and food across the portage in one trip so attaching items to the canoe is an option. I distribute the weight of my canoe, backpack and food pack to manageable levels.

I use a similar tactic for my paddles but I only tie in the handles. The blades go under the foot brace and the paddle handles are bungeed to the front thwart. Once inverted the blades can't fall down because they're trapped by the foot brace.

Alan

I can't single carry any more because of age-related weakness, but for purposes of this thread please allow me to project myself into a younger body. Less than 65 will do.

I divide my load into four categories:

1. Canoe. I used a 38-42 lb. solo canoe, and now would get one closer to 30 lbs. This is costly but it will last my life (and, remember, I'm young again).

2. Paddles. I only use carbon, one straight and one bent. These add less than 25 oz.

3. Everything else except food. My gear is all minimal, compactable and lightweight, but not backpacker ultra-light. I take the same gear whether my trip is one or seven days, except I take an extra shirt and pants on longer trips. Air mattress and pillow. Down sleeping bag. I do like a three-person tent for a lot of room, and I have one that weighs 5-6 lbs. If I became a hammock guy, I could cut off a few pounds.

4. Food and kitchen stuff. I'm a total non-cooker and non-gourmet. All I do is boil water on either my JetBoil type stove, alcohol stove or small twig stove. All meals are just commercial freeze-dried meals and packaged snacks. That is all pretty lightweight and compact. My entire kitchen is my small stove (or two), a spork and an insulated drinking cup. The food for a week all fits in a collapsible Ursack.

All the primary gear, shelter, sleep gear, clothing, tarp, gravity filter, machete, saw, and food/Ursack fits in one Duluth pack. I have a separate small, rolltop wateproof backpack for medical kit, ditch kit stuff, some of the snacks, my cup, phone, camera, and some other miscellany. This pack can be carried on top of the Duluth or on my front when portaging.

I never used to take a chair as a single portager, but I'd now probably investigate the Helinox type chairs.

We use a zippered bag (DIY) attached to the inner side of the canoe to carry the paddles and a spare.
The PFD’s, my wife’s bow bag and the map case go in a pocket on one of our packs (DIY).
Nothing is dangling on the canoe.
I use a DIY u-shaped Portage pad that makes it easier to carry the canoe and portage pack on longer portages. In addition, aluminum stays and a frame sheet help transfer more weight to the hips and off the shoulders.

Other than that, we take a minimum of gear, clothing and food.
The gear is not ultralight, but it is high quality and dependable.
We are quite careful with the portions of food we plan.

We have had good luck with our methods, gear and food on two-week trips that include many portages.

In my younger days, I had no problem to carry my full pack as well as a 60 lb strip built competition cruiser for a couple miles.
Then I was run over by a pick up truck while bicycling. I lost lots of muscle and nearly a leg.
So...I built a lighter weight tandem, 37 lbs, and could carry my full pack as well as the canoe for a couple miles.
Then, MDB gradually withdrew from wilderness trips.
I built a 32 lb solo, and could carry my less full pack and canoe for a couple miles.
Then I got older and smaller yet.
So... I built a lighter weight solo boat, my carbon copy Kite.
But, sigh, I can no longer single carry, as proven by my last two aborted and abbreviated solo trips.

Well, I have lightweight gear (Big Agnes solo tent, NeoAir mattress, down bag, Kelly Kettle, Sawyer filter) but I suppose I need to eliminate my Helinox chair, and my beloved Nikon DLSR (3.5 lbs!!)
All my food is dried by me at home and fits in my pack. My home made paddle is 14 oz. I only bring enough clothing for the particular season, no spare clothing in warm weather. I don't need to, nor would I consider, carrying drinking water, I filter as I go.
What else?? Ok, my PFD is kinda hefty, I suppose I could replace that, but I couldn't save enough weight with that alone to make up for my shrinking muscle mass.
It doesn't help that I am and always was a welterweight, so the loads I carried were a fairly large percentage of my body weight. And though I can still make the weight limit as a welterweight, I'm not the same 146 lbs as I was even a decade ago, dang.
Anyway, pack goes on my back, paddle is strapped in, PFD zippered around the seat. Nothing loose, nothing hand carried.

I had a goal to take a trip across the Adirondacks SW to NE a few years back, ending at my daughter's then home across the north end of Lake Champlain. The first thing I had to do was to get a canoe I could carry on roads and trails, with several miles of woodland bushwhack for a large portion of the trip. I used a 15 pound 10.5' carbon/kevlar hybrid Hornbeck canoe. I also use a custom modified Knupak backpack to carry all my gear, food, and canoe all at once. Carbon fiber paddle is stored securely inside, along with a custom home made spray cover for the larger windy lakes.

This is a photo of me leaving home with everything I needed for up to 10 days, although I finished in exactly seven days. 185 miles total, including 62 miles of carries 1/3 of the total distance during a hot dry buggy July week. All my food was home dehydrated, except for two restaurant meals I stopped for along the way. I had previously stashed food in a bear resistant canister near mid-way, but didn't need to use any of it.

I suppose I need to eliminate my Helinox chair, and my beloved Nikon DLSR (3.5 lbs!!)

Click to expand...

Nah, just double carry. Helinox isn't heavy enough to make or break you and pictures are always great for the TR.

Delete

I have a similar "single carry" obsession.

Points:

• I pack like I would for a backpacking trip. Light, no luxuries.
• I prefer early/late season camping, when I can use a simple 10x10 plowpoint with no bug netting, and sleep on a simple air mattress. This is the lightest possible method. If I have to go in the June-Aug season, I switch to a hammock, which weighs about a pound extra. The additional weight of the hammock is offset by the lighter sleeping bag (vs spring/fall quilt), no air mattress, smaller tarp, and no ground cloth.
• By it's nature, a solo canoe creates a trim issue (I think that's what you call the front/back load distro... can't remember the word for left/right balance) that is slightly different from that of a tandem canoe. This is solved in some cases by carrying a large and small pack to put fore/aft as needed for trim.
• My canoes are a Hemlock Nussmuk XL (22lbs, 12') and a Chestnut Chum (50-ish lbs, 14.5'). I don't portage the Chum much, and have to double trip it when I do.
• I only take one pair of footwear. In spring/fall, it's a pair of Muck boots, knee high, neoprene. In summer, it's a pair of Merrills.

Solutions:
The Nessmuk was apparently designed to flip over one's shoulder, carrying it by the back thwart much as a warrior of old would carry a shield. This works on day trips, but not when the shoulder strap of a pack fills that space on your shoulder and it keeps slipping off. I've experimented with a hook system, but it was inconvenient.

The best way to carry it, I found, was by drilling a couple holes in the right places on the two thwarts and installing some bungi cord. This enables me to split my paddle, put the blades through the appropriate bungies, slide the handles up into a different set on the other thwart, and off I go. The shafts are just the right distance apart that they sit right on top of my backpack's shoulder straps, which cushions them.

So how do you manage "trim" and 'the load'? I have tried a couple different methods...

• One involved a 65L SealLine Black Canyon portage sack... everything went in one large 6lb pack. Ridiculous... a 6lb pack to carry a 22-27lb load. Not doing it.
• Another involved a smaller backpacking pack (GoLite Jam70, 2lbs) which held a 30L dry bag for things that HAD to stay dry, with my other stuff in a smaller backpack/foodbag. This made trim easier, but I had to front-carry the food pack, which is awkward; hard to walk if you can't see your feets.
• Another solution involved a larger GoLite Gust (90L with extension collar, 20oz stock, 22oz with the two large mesh side pockets I added) with the 30L dry bag. There is PLENTY of extra room in that thing for a food bag. All the loose stuff that lives in a canoe underway (water bottle, clothing, shoes, tackle box, map) can be very quickly scooped up and put back into that bag in less time than it takes to talk about it.

I generally use the latter two packs now, depending on the length of the trip/size of the food bag. 4 or fewer days, the smaller Jam70 is perfect. 5 days or more, the food bag is big enough that i need the extra room afforded by the Gust's expansion collar.

Underway, the food bag comes out and I arrange it and the pack as needed, front or rear, for trim/wind conditions.

Upon arrival at the landing, the pack is re-assembled: food bag goes in, water bottle and pocket tackle box go in one of the side pockets (both packs side pockets are large enough to hold a pair of normal hiking shoes). Any shirts, hats, or whatever that I've got laying around go on top with the foodbag. It takes only a minute to do. The longest part is getting my shoes back on over clean/rinsed feet after getting ashore. This is another advantage to the spring/fall trips, when you wear pack boots.

There is also ancillary equipment: my canoe requires a seat (crazy creek chair), I have a fishing pole, and a life jacket and sponge/bailer are required in places. The fishing pole gets stowed with bungies inside the canoe, under the thwarts, and is entirely out of the way when portaging. The life jacket gets strapped to the outside of the pack under a couple bungies (again, quick). The sponge/bailer are caribinered into the stern. I have woven a web of bank line through the gunwales for about 9", so they don't flop around much. The crazy creek chair took a long minute to figure out... I finally settled on this: every pack has a carry loop on top. I've always had a biner and 18" of paracord there to hang the pack around a tree with anyway... so I fold the chair in half, and clip the two handles into the biner. This then lies flat against the back of the pack. I put the pack on as normal, with that additional thin layer of foam and it carries just fine.

Once my pack is thus loaded, it's a simple matter to pick up a 22lb canoe and carry it on one's shoulders.

Here are some pictures to help visualize it all.


The Jam70. You can see the thwart that has the two 'wide' bungis for holding the blades.


Here you can see the other thwart, with the two 'narrow' bungies for the paddle shafts. You can also see the two green foam pads I glued in for my feet to rest on... Quieter, and comfortable (I don't wear anything but socks on my feet in the canoe... shoes and boots come off unless it's raining... otherwise, it makes a muddy mess.)


Rare selfie... but you can clearly see the shafts and how they sit on the shoulder straps, acting as pads. BTW, the blue pads... one is for setting my pocket tackle box and pliers on, so the noise doesn't echo all over the pond. The other, if you look closely, is actually 3 stacked, which raises me up enough to more comfortably paddle over the side.


This is a picture of my Gust (90L) loaded, with my yellow life jacket ready to don. In portage, it would be strapped in where that green rain jacket is. The purple thing is my Crazy Creek camp chair. 23x23, fits right where i said it does, up against the pack.


And finally, the loaded canoe again... here, you can see the chair in place, both thwarts, how I put my fishing pole in (that orange line on the right), and the end of my green/white sponge sticking up.


Hope that helps.

Mnoutdoorfunguy said:

We use a zippered bag (DIY) attached to the inner side of the canoe to carry the paddles and a spare.
The PFD’s, my wife’s bow bag and the map case go in a pocket on one of our packs (DIY).
Nothing is dangling on the canoe.
I use a DIY u-shaped Portage pad that makes it easier to carry the canoe and portage pack on longer portages. In addition, aluminum stays and a frame sheet help transfer more weight to the hips and off the shoulders.

Other than that, we take a minimum of gear, clothing and food.
The gear is not ultralight, but it is high quality and dependable.
We are quite careful with the portions of food we plan.

We have had good luck with our methods, gear and food on two-week trips that include many portages.

Click to expand...

Are you able to share any pictures of the DIY solutions ?

This interests me, although I haven't done more than a handful of trips with portages - and mostly short ones at that. It seems to me that an inflatable pfd would be an advantage. @Seeker - is that what I see in your second to last photo?

My method for caring my paddles on a portage.

The bent blades wedge. This works, but a bungee cord strap at the thwart and handle works better.



Place the thwart about 26" fore, of the seat.

Single carry portaging seems like young man’s game. I never did it and couldn’t do it now because I am too old and depend on what many would consider comfort luxuries.

Gamma1214 said:

Nah, just double carry. Helinox isn't heavy enough to make or break you and pictures are always great for the TR.

Click to expand...

The Helinox Chair Zero is lighter than the Chair One. It’s just a little less stable. I take the sand pad too, which helps. I can’t pack enough food and equipment into one pack to do more than a weekend solo trip without suffering, which is contrary to the purpose. I’ve tried. Comfort is important for enjoyment.

If I'm the edge of being able to single portage, what has usually made the difference is my exercise program leading up to the trip. If I've not prepared then it falls to a double-portage, but if I'm feeling strong and decently in shape, I can single portage more often than double portage. Then of course there are times where I bring everything I own and it's double portage for sure.

Back in the day I was a single carry guy. It was the only way to go when you had to worry about dodging dinosaurs on the portage trail. I kept it simple. I had a big Seal Line dry bag, and everything went in there. I found on solo trips I never really ate much, as I usually paddled from dawn till dusk, so my food was in a separate small dry bag in the bigger bag. Tent, sleeping bag, a few clothes and that was pretty much it. I usually picked a route that we had cleared earlier in the summer, so I didn't bother with a saw or axe either. Paddles got tied into the canoe, and were used as the carrying yoke. The canoe during this period was a cedar strip Osprey, the first solo and the second canoe I had made. Using this get up, I was able to do the Steel Loop in 3.5 days. I was all about knocking off the miles back then. I one timed Diablo port in 45 minutes.

I am now living with results of those heady days. A recent MRI showed that my back is a roller coaster of bulges and narrowings and other bad back norms. I can still walk long distances without a load. Indeed, I can walk long distances with a load, if I am willing to suffer for a long time afterward. I don't regret those days, but probably as a result of them, I do more sitting around the fire at home then I do in the bush. Cue the Bob Seger song, lol.

Steve in Idaho said:

This interests me, although I haven't done more than a handful of trips with portages - and mostly short ones at that. It seems to me that an inflatable pfd would be an advantage. @Seeker - is that what I see in your second to last photo?

Click to expand...

Steve,
So sorry for the ridiculously late response... Just now saw it. Yes, that is a West Marine CO2 inflatable PFD.

As a senior citizen, I just finished a single carry trip over 3 ancient canoe portages in coastal Maine. We had an 80 pound tandem, 8 gallons of water (we were paddling in salt, and found opportunities to top up every other day). We brought chairs. The trick? Invite an ex-marine twenty years younger who is raring to carry the boat and his full pack. Meanwhile I carried my full pack, the paddles, the pfd's and all the water.

Paddlinhal said:

As a senior citizen, I just finished a single carry trip over 3 ancient canoe portages in coastal Maine. We had an 80 pound tandem, 8 gallons of water (we were paddling in salt, and found opportunities to top up every other day). We brought chairs. The trick? Invite an ex-marine twenty years younger who is raring to carry the boat and his full pack. Meanwhile I carried my full pack, the paddles, the pfd's and all the water.

Click to expand...

This is why I learned to like chaperoning BWCA trips with my wife’s church youth group. I would always take the group which was all high school aged guys. Simple challenges such as “who can take this pack and a canoe (they were all aluminum boats) all the way through the portage?” Very quickly the kids started challenging each other and I strolled across the portage with my day pack and some paddles.

The down side was you had to be quick at chow time on the trail to make sure you got your share. But in the camp mess hall I always sat at the girls table and I didn’t have to fight for my share.

With the introduction of 20# canoes this may be doable for more of the younger crowd. Shorter trip the easier too. Having gone through the herneated disc thing I would never recommend it for longer trips. You may manage it but the toll it takes on your spine and knees is not worth it in the long haul. No pun intended. I think 115# was as trim as my kit kit ever got down to. I can see at fat wallet could really trim that down now.