Another off day for Danny. I slept in to 9.30. The night was again freezing cold. In desperation of warmth I had my traditional morning shower, body lotion, hairdo moment spending an hour in the warm heated bathroom. Ruben was gone to work, so we had chill breakfast. Ranger demonstratively sat in front of the hut door while we were eating and I could not help myself but thinking he needed to go out to pee. How long can they hold back? But was it a trick? He seems to know that with his big eyes he can melt my heart. Reuben told me to educate him, so I would make him sit far away enough from the entry, give him a treat, open the door, go out, close it (I mean when I needed to go out and wanted him not to run away without permission) He was supposed not moving. And usually it worked, but this time, before I knew it he ran out the door, kind of behind my back between my legs. Oh Ranger, sneaky boy! The dog outside, challenging us to run after him. You know how dogs look at you, duck down on the front legs and move their front body from one side to the other. There was no point in trying to get closer, he would always back off just on time for me to not catch him. I made him believe I was after him, so we played a little moment, but then I just walked to the hut and went inside. A little bewildered, not expecting that, he approached the house. I was actually simply getting some crackers for him. The good thing about dogs is, they never resist a treat. A too easy way I thought, for such a big and strong dog, to get trapped again. We went for a pipi walk with him.
We had a hard 5 min to decide what to do especially because despite the cloudless shiny sunny weather, the wind was blowing strongly and freezing cold. Should we try and go for a multi pitch route anyway? Two things to consider: the approach and the exposition to the sun. Most of the routes in this part of the park were in the shadow now or needing at least a 1 hour walk to get there. The outlook on hanging long minutes in a wind-exposed stand in the shadow, didn’t cheer us up. Danny was also particularly tired (going towards the end of the year, he had a long season of work behind him) We ended up « ERRATICING » on the Tenaya lake and Knob boulders 15 min down the road (etymology: erratic. in the geological meaning it is a boulder being carried away by glacial ice and deposited some distance from its place of origin. "Erraticing" the verb of it, meaning climbing on an erratic) - who ever liked climbing, will find great pleasure in this activity only if his interest is in refining his technic and strength. I like to see myself as the moving erratic. Detached from where I came from, but having in me the essence, the inner structure of it, having no certain or definite course; wandering; not fixed. Some people would think that this matches who I am perfectly. As an « erraticer » I am a rock hugger, exchanging energies, giving and receiving from it. The Knob boulders are all right off the road. Rocks scattered below a nice granite wall, lying on a granite platform. The structure of the granite is surprising! Hundreds of little knobs stick out the surface of the rock
