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Has anyone here done this trip? Im looking to plan a Cedar L to McManus L trip. However, the logistics dictate that I would need to drop one vehicle at Cedar L, and one vehicle at McManus for the end of the trip.
The snag I'm having is that my vehicle (and my buddy's) can only handle one canoe and we both have solos canoes. Is there a way to rent one canoe from grumpy Jake at Brent Campground and drop it at McManus? Has this been done before?
Help me out here.
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We did the lower half several years ago which made the shuttle easier. Had 3 vehicles and I could fit 2 canoes on the truck so we left one at McManus for the take out and then drove the other 2 and the 3 canoes up to Travers.
In your case you might want to think about how much you really want to use 2 solo boats instead of a single tandem whitewater tripper. Nothing wrong with solo boats but it’s definitely adding to your shuttle time.
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Thanks Rob. My tripping partner and I are adamant about being autonomous and having our own canoes. How was thew fishing along the stretch you traveled? Any walleye?
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The trip we did from Travers down to McManus, I ended up not fishing at all. I did another trip a few years later from McManus up to Whitson with one of my sons. We caught a ton of catfish on that trip, a couple of muskies, a few small walleye and one really nice one.
On the trip from Travers we rented canoes from Algonquin Portage. Algonquin bound has a store in that area now too. You could check if they do shuttles, although the when shuttles are available to prices tend to be fair, but costly due to the time it takes to shuttle a vehicle.
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Depending on the cost of the shuttle and mechanics of this trip, i may just do exactly as you have suggested. I wasn't aware of the Algonquin Bound outfitter in the area. Thanks again for your help.
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In order to transport two canoes, I have used the foam blocks (4 of them) to support two 2" X 3" pieces of wood across the roof of the car. You can ratchet those down to some degree through the cabin of the vehicle if you'd like to enhance the rigidity of the base you're putting your canoes on. I then tie the canoes down to the front and back of the car so that I am not creating lateral forces - I don't want them pushing hard up against each other (put something between them to eliminate rubbing anyways) and I don't want to be pulling them towards the outside so as to pull them off of the 'rack'. I've done this for up to an hour long trip with maximum speeds around 65mph. It's a little wonky, depending upon your force vectors of tie-downs, but it does the trick.
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Thanks for the tip, PaPaddler. I have roof racks on the cab of my truck, perhaps I'll give that a shot if necessary.
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What kind of racks do you have? If they are Thule or Yakima then I would be comfortable extending them to hold 2 canoes using a 2"X4". I use a Yakima set on the cab of my truck with 78" bars.
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Ultimately, you just need to extend the surface area mildly across the vehicle. What makes your problem nice is that you're dealing with two solo canoes that should be relatively narrow compared to the tandem trippers that I have done this with in the past. If you go this route, you will want to secure some form of padding between the two canoes so they don't rub on each other and get damaged - and make sure that the padding is not going to blow out at highway speeds.
Since you have an existing rack, you could tightly lash the lumber in place parallel to your rack with relative ease - that is very helpful to have a solid base such as that so you get less play between boat/rack/vehicle. Whatever route you choose - good luck and enjoy!
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I have Thule racks and added 2 2X4S and 4 u bolts to fit the crossbars.
Drill the 2X4S and bolt to the crossbars. sit the canoes in place, leaving about 2 to 4 inches between them, mark and cut the 2X4S to length and use a cut off to make a block to fit between the canoes as almost a gunwale stop. This also gives me room to run the rope through under everything so I can lash each canoe separately. Add some pieces of pool noodle or carpet wherever the canoe touches, add rope and you are good to go.
All in I know I got out of the hardware store for under $20.00
IMG_0555 by , on Flickr
I also added some blocks to the outsides as gunwale locks
IMG_0554 by , on Flickr
And no matter how careful you are, you will it your head more than once.
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RobW - I have factory roof racks on my Chev Avalanche. I should be able to rig something up quite easily. Sadly the racks are curved which makes it a bit more challenging, but i'll figure it out.
PaPaddler - Thanks again for the suggestions and help.
Rob - That's a pretty slick set-up, good job!
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