Kayaking

Can anyone suggest an easy way to get a kayak on top of a pickup truck?

I have a 14.5 foot touring kayak and a Honda Ridgeline pickup truck.

I can help a tall person manuever it onto the truck, but at 5' 2" I'm useless at trying to get it up there.

Hence, I can't take it anywhere. :(

I know there are systems for hoisting them but I'm pretty maxed out on my spending (bikes take priority) so it would have to be cheap. No one at any of the local backpacking type stores has been helpful. They just throw me a catalog.

What type of bars do you have? Do you have the kayaking cradles?

I have yakima bars with hully rollers on the back (but I think if you put some pieces of plastic pipe over yakima round bars, you could simulate rollers) on my subaru and I've got mako saddles on the front.

I have the yakima bar end loaded bar that is an extension bar that pulls out of the end of my yakima bars.... So I pull htat bar out, then I rest the kayak standing on it's tip against the bar...

Then I just have to pick up the bottom end of the kayak and slide it forward onto the bar end loader... There's a slight lift to lift the end of the kayak on to the rollers in the back.

I think you could do all of this without the cradles and the rollers - but the bar end loader's kinda necessary. I'm 5'1 and can manage getting 2 kayaks on my subaru without any problem, even if I'm parked on a hill that makes the subaru relatively taller to get the boat on.

i sort of think if you had a bar end loader on the back of your pickup bars and your boat standing up on it, you could either stand in the bed of your pickup or on the back tailgate, pick the kayak up by it's cockpit and slide it forward.

To tie down my kayak I spend a lot of time standing on the tires of my car or on the back bumper or just inside the doors.

I went out on our small reservoir today. It was like glass. I paddled around and saw 3 owl children. They were out of the nest on a limb. Then there were the cormorant nests--eggs haven't yet hatched. I also saw about 20 deer, several ospreys, a pair of mallards, some coots, 3 pelicans, and a few magpies. Then on the way back toward the launching area, I saw a Baltimore oriole. He was gorgeous. I think that's only about the 2nd one I've ever seen in my whole juicy life.