Mike Rawdon and I have been taking an annual trip to the Daks for so long now (2 years) that it’s become something of a tradition. Part of the tradition is that we do something that stretches my boundaries of suffering and adventure, i.e. a 7 mile hike to climb 3 pitches of runout slab and the First Free Ascent of the Direct Variation of Bees Three (for which I expect appropriate guidebook credit).

This year Mike suggested Little Finger on Roger’s Rock and I snickered quietly to myself. I was getting off light. A well-protected 5.5, up and back in a day, and best of all, no hiking: kayak in and rap down.

Mike had a two-seat kayak, one dry bag for the rope, a couple of garbage bags, and one extra life jacket. My pack got the life jacket because it had the rack and both packs got stuffed into garbage bags with “lots of air” which was theoretically going to keep them floating in case of an upset. Ha.

With the two of us and all our gear in the kayak it rode pretty low. I’d never kayaked before but I’d been in a few canoes, all of which had tipped over. Mike assured me that kayaks are harder to tip than canoes and I assured him that my upsets had all involved teenage boys and we pushed off.

Now, my idea of a Lake is Placid. OK, we were on Lake George, not Lake Placid, but still. This lake was kind of choppy. I’m not saying you could surf on it but it wasn’t what you’d call glassy smooth either. The trip out went pretty well, although it took me a while to get the hang of rotating the oar appropriately (works best if you just don’t think about it).

From the boat launch we headed left towards a little island just off shore. We went between the island and shore – a tight squeeze thanks to all the stepping stones that have been placed, you wouldn’t want to try it in a larger vessel. Then we stayed pretty close to the shoreline. The rock got close and steep. After a bit there was a small projection of low land and we stopped there and secured the boat.

Next we had to scramble along the shore a ways to get to the slab. The line is really not that “obvious” when approaching this way because the trees hide the slab and you’re not far enough away to see the crack. But Mike had been there before and once you see the crack you know it.

The route was great, well-protected as advertised. It was hot that day and sunny and the rock got pretty hot, especially when actual friction moves were required. We could feel our shoes melting out from under our feet but a slight breeze kept it from being miserable. I led the direct variation (5.7) and it was a great capper to the route. From the end of the direct variation Mike led the last scramble sideways to the first rap station.

That’s when the real fun started. The first rap is more sideways than down, straight through a very large bush. Almost every tree has a sling around it and there’s no clue whether you can make the next one or not. We probably should have done some lowering rather than rapping, but Mike only had to climb back up once. I wouldn’t want to try to pull two ropes there, FYI. I felt lucky we kept getting just the one rope back.

It seemed to take as long to get down as it had to get up – and to be a whole lot more work and scarier besides – but we finally made it back to the kayak.

Well, the trip back was an adventure. The chop had gotten worse, not better, and we had waves breaking over the top of the kayak. It was soon flooded and the roll when a wave hit was frightening. I kept wondering how I’d ever get out of the kayak upside down with my legs wedged up, around, and over my pack. Mike told me later he didn’t think we could have taken on another wave and made it, which I’m glad he didn’t mention at the time.

When we got to the boat ramp some folks came down to help us pull up the kayak. They were pretty impressed by us and I have to admit I felt pretty good about it myself. Rather than getting off easy, I’d had a high adventure day.