Warning-disclaimer: experienced trippers may find the following boring and/or tedious.

Portaging can be a lesson in life! Start with a bad decision, do it a few times and then bingo, it becomes the method of operation.......you just keep doing it that way because that is the way you have always done it.

My more experienced canoe partner was big into efficiency, no wasted movements. It was woven into the pleasure of the trip from his perspective. It was also, in part, why he was usually anywhere from 10 minutes to 1/2 hour ahead of me (he was also just flat out faster on the trail itself but I digress).

KF's procedure was to have 2 packs, one is placed on the bank, the other was wore and with the boat still in the water it was then hoisted and off he went. At the end of the trail the boat was placed immediately in the water (tied off of course) or partially thrust out ready to egress.

It is likely I will never be able to emulate this process and that is OK for me. I prefer on longer portages to take my heaviest load first and without the boat. My belief is after walking a trail twice you can note what obstacles that might cause you some difficulty while carrying your boat. Shorter walks I did take the boat first. But what I did do was evaluate where every motion went.

The take aways for me were I was wasting time using those velcro paddle holders each and every time. Darrel just slipped his paddle underneath a piece of elastic and off he went. The other thing that was not well thought out was my map case. I had been clipping it on my pack via a biner. Clip it on, clip it off........more wasted time.

As per putting the boats in the water.......I had always resisted the thought but it was pointed out to me that when you have 2 boats you can always use one to retrieve a "misplaced" vessel. We had darn near perfect weather our entire time so I am assuming you don't place your kev canoe in the water while the waves are crashing in.......I have enough scratches already.

So basically the key is to be critical of every movement, evaluate it with a eye on efficiency. But everyone has their own style and that's a good thing.