This morning, high above Toulumne Meadows, Tenzing had his first rock climbing lesson on the very granite where, 37 years ago, I had mine. For four decades, Puppy Dome is the place where the venerable Yosemite Mountaineering School has held its classes for neophytes; but today, Tenzing, BJ, Yoo-Mi and I had the rock to ourselves.
Setting up the top-belay was not exactly a routine scramble up the rock for me, since I have been relegated to crutches while my twice-repaired Achilles tendon rupture mends. I went as far up the perimeter of the rock face as I could on my crutches before executing a rather inelegant – and somewhat dicey – one-footed traverse to the belay position.
Soon the little man – named after one of the greatest and most famous mountaineers of all time – was yelling “On belay!” for the first time.
Tenzing summitted three times on the morning. At least for 10 Septemeber 2006, he was the undisputed King of Puppy Dome.
memestream 
Cute, very cute. Mark, he looks just like you. He’s going to be so happy years from now when he looks back at such wonderful photos and recalls the experience, much like I remember hiking the national parks in the Southwest with my dad and sister.