Words & photos:
Dave Janes
Paddlesport Instructor
at Plas y Brenin

Dave Janes

Bio

Dave Janes has spent a lifetime in boats. Dave is an accomplished expedition paddler with first descents and first ‘portages’ to his name, and he is always looking for the next adventure. Dave is an experienced coach at Plas y Brenin (the National Outdoor Centre), sharing his passion and enthusiasm with students to enable and encourage adventures and wilderness experiences.

Portaging top tips

As a canoeist, I find myself drawn to obscure bodies of water on a map and enjoy the challenge of getting my canoe and me there. I am, without a doubt, as enthusiastic about portaging as canoeing a large volume of white water. I dream of going longer, further, and more remote with every trip. Over many hundreds of miles portaging my canoe, I have devised some systems and efficient hacks that make the hard work ever so slightly easier. 

The dark arts of canoe portaging
Here, we explore some top tips and handy hints that cover the dark arts of canoe portaging. The principles still apply whether this is a day trip or a longer expedition. From ideas on making portages less arduous or boat outfitting and equipment set up to make transitions between modes of travel more efficient.

• Full traditional portaging is best avoided.
  ­Explore other options before you commit to lugging all your gear around. Poling, lining, tracking, wading, dragging, moving kit and floating boat are all options.
• Staying in the water system is usually the easier option. It may be slower, but your knees and back will thank you.
• Scout ahead, try both banks, analyse the map, and look for the path of least resistance. Sometimes, carrying a big bag over a certain terrain is easier than carrying a boat over the same terrain.
• Have a plan when prepping for a trip with known portages. Will you be doing the portages in an ‘oner’ or in laps of two or three? Pack kit and equipment into bags according to this.
• Canoeing involves a lot of gear, such as paddles, ropes, bailers, poles, helmets, and buoyancy aids. You may want to find a way to carry them. Lashing into your boat and attaching bits to lacing is an option, but it adds weight to an already heavy boat. My top tip is to have a kit bag that is too big for your kit so you can dump other bits into the extra space for portaging, saving dangling kit along the trail.

• Keep some old rope or, better still, bungee ties for lashing paddles and poles together to prevent you from juggling two poles and three paddles whilst carrying a heavy kit bag.
• In the spirit of scouting the trail first, it’s worth shifting your bag before returning for your canoe. This allows two walks on the trail before carrying a canoe on your shoulders.
• A big discussion before trips is the trolley or no trolley question. Long portages along roadsides are 100% easier with a trolley; however, it’s cumbersome and heavy to keep with you for a journey and a faff to portage over uneven ground.
• Not all trolleys are equal. If you’ve decided that trolleys are for you, look for solid wheels (non-inflatable) that are easy to store in your boat and check that they have a solid connection to the boat.
• Consider how you carry your boat. Practice getting it on your shoulder. Doing it fresh in a car park is different to day six, halfway through a canoe journey. Can you carry tandem? Can you simply just drag it? Putting your back out in the wilderness, lifting a canoe onto your shoulders becomes the thing of living nightmares.

Going with the wind or drifting with the flow is the ultimate dream of canoeing. Rarely does this happen without some work thrown in. You can take away useful things to make that hard work on your next journey more bearable.