Google Earth look at the location of the Jewell Lake Icefall.

Jewell Lake Icefall is a beautiful wall of ice just southwest of Jewell Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a fairly popular destination on weekends but most weekdays you’ll have the place to yourself. It’s a quick 3.2 mile hike from the Glacier Gorge trailhead off of Bear Lake Road (about 8.4 miles from the Beaver Meadows Entrance of RMNP) that passes by — or in this case, over — Mills Lake and Jewell Lake.

The crew on the windy approach to Mills Lake.

The Jewell Lake Icefall is IN!

Bouldering around on the icefall. Fun!

Mills Lake was windy as could be but you can't beat a blue, Colorado winter day!

It was a fun little outing and I can’t wait to get back and do some more legit climbing on the ice. All told it’s about 6.2 miles round trip with a modest elevation gain of about 900 feet on the way up. Both Mills Lake and Jewell Lake were frozen hard, so I wouldn’t suggest following my GPS tracks in the summer

Related posts:

1. Mount Edwards – Goatfinger Couloir Scouting Trip On a cool, windy December day Fremont, Mystic and I...
2. Handies Peak and Whitecross Mountain Trip Report Though I didn’t know it at the time, my trip...
3. Snowmass Mountain Trip Report – July 31 – Aug 1 2010 I had only been to Snowmass Lake many years ago...

The NES-101 or "Top Loader" was light years more reliable than the original NES but suffered from a major shortcoming: no RCA AV out!

It would have been the ideal NES system except for one slight oversight: the video composite signal was only pushed out in RF, not higher quality AV. Worse still was the fact the RF output was lousy, most notably in dark backgrounds where faint but quite visible vertical lines would appear. One would assume that eliminating the AV out was a money saving measure to keep the price down.

For years my Top Loader sat on the shelf, as I preferred the cranky nature of my original NES with its high quality output over the visually flawed (but always reliable) Top Loader. Japan had an AV ready version of the Top Loader known as the “Famicom-AV” which I considered but ultimately never bought. After not thinking about it for some time, I eventually game upon this awesome NES Modifying Site. For a reasonable price, I sent out my Top Loader to be beefed up to AV output and as an added perk, threw in a red LED light on the power switch.

With a little bit of modding, the NES Top Loader now has fancy-pants AV outputs!

Game-Tech was very professional, quick and did a fantastic job on my NES. When I tested it, everything worked like a charm and my games have never looked better. And no more blinking screen of death!! The red LED is a nice touch too, though maybe not as cool as this custom mod. Now I have the best of both worlds: a true Nintendo developed console that not only looks and sounds great but is incredibly reliable!

The red LED light is a nice touch, don't you think?

All my games have worked perfectly and there’s not the slightest trace of the vertical lines that ruined the original Top Loader experience. I’d highly recommend Game-Tech if you want some mods done on your classic consoles. Long live classic gaming!

Everything works like a charm!

Related posts:

1. Roll the Bones Please don’t be scared off by the fact this blog...
2. Top 100 NES Games – The 8 Year Project An 8 year voting project comes to an end --...
3. Snowboardin’ Road Trip + Blaster Master As my bio says on the right over there –>...

360 degree view from the lower summit of New York Mountain. Click for a larger view! Also all apologies to Steve for sending his head and face into the 4th dimension.

Note on the 360 view: if you manually enter this link in a new tab or window: http://www.mountainouswords.com/new-york-mountain-360-view.jpg you can click it to get the super-big version!

All sorts of fun was had on the 2012 New Year’s Polar Star Inn hut adventure out of Eagle, Colorado. The snow was spotty but we did get to play on New York Mountain and enjoyed some gorgeous weather. I’ll let the photos tell the story!

Unloading the trucks at Fulford. Cheating a little?

The conditions were a bit dry on the climb up.

Hut royalty.

Everyone is wide awake at 7 PM. Only 5 hours to go...

We can haz happy new yearz?

Now that's a fancy necktie if I've ever seen one! Also, let it be known that I am pro-snowman pajamas!

Jay and Ingrid festooned with matching garland.

That's some intense group focus! Too bad I can't say the same for the photo.

Amy at the start of the charge up New York Mountain.

The troops gather at treeline below New York Mountain.

Intrepid climbers head to the summit of New York Mountain.

Movin' on up -- to the west side!

Nice views of the Gore Range!

Party on the shoulder of New York Mountain.

The big, curvy cornice on New York Mountain.

En route to the lower summit of New York Mountain. Will someone get that shadow guy out of there?!

The frozen tundra of Lambeau Field... or New York Mountain.

Nearing the "winter summit".

Bart and Vela on the summit with Gold Dust Peak in the background.

Steve tastes sweet, sweet mountain glory on the top!

James and Sheila present an optical illusion: in real life, we're about the same height!

Group summit shot. Photo taken by E.L. Fudge.

Pumped at the summit!

Long shadows on the descent.

The skiing wasn't good but hey, at least we tried! Except for me, who was on snowshoes.

The cover for Amy and Mike's next album.

A foxy finish to the hut trip!

Related posts:

1. Watrous Gulch 4 Pack: Four 13ers in a Day After a much needed rest day on Sunday, Fremont and...
2. Handies Peak and Whitecross Mountain Trip Report Though I didn’t know it at the time, my trip...
3. Mount Oklahoma – Trip Report – July 24, 2010 My trip to Mount Oklahoma was originally supposed to be...

What a magnificently glaciated basin Stevens Gulch is from Google Earth's point of view!

On a cool, windy December day Fremont, Mystic and I headed up Stevens Gulch to scout out the Goatfinger Couloir on 13,856 ft. Mount Edwards (and for me to practice my suspect cross-country skiing skills). Many of you have been up this road to hike Grays and Torreys Peaks. It’s a wonderfully barren place in the winter as the access road is closed just off of I-70. We ended up doing 9 miles round trip in about four hours, a good winter’s day out for a pair of high-energy border collies.

The famous bridge leading to Grays/Torreys/Edwards trail. No one but us border collies here today!

If you’re looking for fun winter dog adventure close to the Front Range, this access road is perfect. It’s fairly well protected from the elements (until you get above tree line) and you gain enough elevation for it to feel like a workout (about 2,330 ft.) We went to 12,100 ft. to the Grays Peak “welcome sign” to scout out the couloir. There was barely any snow in the gully, which is just as well since this is likely going to be a spring climb.

Fremont (foreground) & Mystic enjoy the only sunbeam we saw all day.

Right about the same spot in the summer. Photo taken during a fun solo scramble of Kelso Ridge.

Fremont reads the Grays Peak welcome sign while Mystic heads off into the willows.

The ol' Goatfinger Couloir (middle of the photo leading to the saddle) is still bereft of significant snow. We'll see you again in April, Goatfinger!

This is also a fun area to winter camp and if you happen to know the right people, you can rent one of the cabins at the end of the road for super-duper comfort. Twas a good day out and I was glad to share it with my favorite dogs!

Related posts:

1. Mount Oklahoma – Trip Report – July 24, 2010 My trip to Mount Oklahoma was originally supposed to be...
2. Mount Lindsey, Iron Nipple, and Huerfano Peak Trip Report I’m hardwired for autumn. Even after a weary week of...
3. Mount Audubon Winter Ascent Trip Report Mount Audubon has a special place in my heart. The...

It's Burgertime-to-die for Peter!

10. Burgertime
Mechanism of Death: Devoured by Living Food Products
Armed only with a few handfuls of debilitating pepper, Chef Peter Pepper has an arduous task before him: construct the perfect hamburger before being killed by a variety of living food items. His is a world of violent sausages and murderous fried eggs whose hardened souls are incapable of mercy. When apprehended, Peter’s face is twisted into an expression of pure 8-bit horror in anticipation of the gore that is to follow. Before the scene cuts out, we see the savage sausage looming over Peter writhing in pain. Then the disembowelment begins and his very vital organs are ingested before his eyes. Or as Lieutenant Frank Drebin would say, “Now the hand is on the other foot.” Which leads us to the ultimate question: wouldn’t Savage Sausage be a good name for a band?

Chin music becomes a symphony of destruction.

9. Baseball Simulator 1.000
Mechanism of Death: Death by Beanball
Most of the comic mischief in Baseball Simulator 1.000 is pure whimsy. That is until a vicious beanball rips the upper torso off an unsuspecting batter, leaving a pair of still standing legs at the plate. By clobbering a hitter with the Photon ultra-pitch, the hitter is literally torn asunder. It all happens very fast and if you’re not paying attention, it may seem like the player is simply “Bom’d” from the impact. But slow-mo instant replay reveals the true mechanism of death at 141 MPH. Let the epitaph be heard,”He died with his cleats on.”

Jumpin' Jack Rash is a gas, gas, gas!

8. Battletoads
Mechanism of Death: Gas Asphyxiation
There’s a lot of exotic ways to die in Battletoads but none more horrifying than the bursts of poisonous gas. These cytotoxic, vesicant puffs are impressively potent. One breath initiates a painful sequence of death, replete with bulging, panicked eyes and a flailing, extended tongue. As the searing chemical blisters well up in their throats, the affected Battletoad clutches at his burning neck and death cannot come quick enough. The vulnerability and sincere agony expressed by the gassed ‘Toad somehow lacks the comedic overtones of being sucked into a razor-sharp fan or being chomped in half by puny piranhas.

So sad indeed. You'll be seeing this guy a lot in Shadowgate.

7. Shadowgate
Mechanism of Death: Broken Legs
Shadowgate could very well have its own top 10 list with all the horrific ways to die. Whether it’s setting yourself on fire, getting your throat ripped out by wolves, shredded by glass, or devoured by a shark, it’s all waiting in the deadly confines of Shadowgate’s castle. Thankfully all the deaths are conveyed only by text, though being forced to visualize the scene in your own mind can present its own unique brand of terror. The worst of all these catastrophes are the broken legs scenarios. Broken legs combine the psychological torture of waiting for your own slow death coupled with the blinding pain of shattered femurs. From the game: “You jump down the hole and, after a couple of moments, hit the floor!! It seems that you have broken both of your legs!! It’s only a matter of time before you die!!” That “matter of time” could be hours or days. It makes one envious of the rather quick and efficient death by dissolving in caustic slime.

What's for lunch. Oh, I am. Bummer.

6. Rampage
Mechanism of Death: Eaten Alive
Picture it: it’s a beautiful day in San Jose. You have the day off. You decide to hop in your boat and go fishing in the heavily polluted river that runs through the heart of downtown. The last thing you expect (if you’re a reasonable person) is to be ingested by a giant, mutated monkey. And yet it happens on a regular basis in cities throughout America in Rampage. People are snatched up and snacked upon like living Cheetos. A few frames of “chewing”animation show that our hapless victims are not mercifully swallowed but rather ground up by powerful mandibles of the super-sized simian. The lesson here is if you want to cast for diseased, urban fish do so on a day when horrible mutants are not destroying the city (I think I read that exact advice in a fortune cookie once).

Puke your way to the afterlife.

5. River City Ransom
Mechanism of Death: Choking on One’s Own Vomit
The trail of blood left behind by heavy-fisted teenagers Ryan and Alex have painted River City red. Early in the game, we are treated to one of Nintendo’s more frightening deaths. After riddling their bodies with heavy blows, the enemies fall to the ground and vomit in their own shattered throats. *BARF!* they exclaim, no doubt choking on the bile that is seeping into a pair of freshly-collapsed lungs. Before they blink into oblivion, we see the eye swollen with fear as the crippled and lifeless thug disappears into the void. Who knows what potential these “Generic Dudes” and Squids” could have achieved in life? Maybe a free smile could have set them on a course of charity and kindness. But no there they lie, gagging on puke on the indifferent pavement of River City.

Wait, that cat isn't equipped with a heat shield!

4. City Connection
Mechanism of Death: Gravitational Reversal
Sometimes it is the implied horror that strikes at the deepest, most fearful part of our trembling hearts. Case in point: the wretched felines sent into the heavens in the very Europe-y game City Connection. There they stand, smiles on their faces, joyfully waving a checkered flag in support of our hatchback-driving hero. One moment all is bliss. Then in an act of pure contempt, they are knocked skyward without remorse, reversing the very laws of gravity. The sheer terror is graphically captured on their kitty faces as they are blasted into the ozone, where they will be melted into oblivion by the stratosphere– but not until being subjected to painful, high-altitude pulmonary edema. Akin to the jarring dissonance of A Clockwork Orange a whimsical tune plays as our once-carefree cat is projected, slow-motion, into the cosmos, where he will dissolve into billions and billions of pieces.

3. Bionic Commando
Mechanism of Death: Disfiguring Head Explosion

The voices in my head have set us up the bomb!

It remains one of the most bizarre scenes in any NES game: at the end of Bionic Commando, we are treated to a legitimately disgusting animation of Hitler, I mean “Master D”, having his head explode in forceful detail. The entire animation is slowed down so you can appreciate the gruesome, dislodged eyeball and each 8-bit tooth being torn from the gums. Granted, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow but in a world where NES censorship forbade anything hinting of blood (green fluid was the normal discharge of NES foes), this is a stunning event. My guess is that those in charge of censoring the game weren’t good enough to get to the end. The final frame where his head explodes like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper is particularly disturbing, right on par to the liquidy, face-melting Nazi death in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

The victim's face clearly shows this is a clean shot to the "upper thigh".

2. Nobunaga’s Ambition
Mechanism of Death: Samurai Sword to the Groin
Civil war is always a bloody affair, even in the 8-bit world. Nobunaga’s Ambition is chock full of sanguinary scenes, such as the line “Lord, rejoice! I bring you the enemy general’s head!” We don’t actually get to see the disembodied head but we do get to witness an even more revolting act. When you hire a ninja to assassinate a rival, if all goes well, your hired killer comes upon the opposing daimyo deep in slumber. In a moment that screams “Oda Nobunaga sends his regards!” your ninja plunges his samurai sword deep into the “upper thigh” (as sportscasters would call it) of your enemy. Make no bones about it, you’ve just killed your opponent by impaling his junk. And it’s a cheap death as ninjas can sometimes be hired for less than a single gold coin. It’s the ultimate rude awakening.

The pixels of death are with ye, Paperboy.

1. Paperboy
Mechanism of Death: Complete Molecular Breakdown
With plenty of games featuring gun-wielding commandos and machete carrying madmen, it may seem odd that Nintendo’s most violent death comes from a game based on the mundane happenings of a suburban paper route. If you can look past the fact there are plenty of ways to die in Paperboy, ranging from clownish, knife thrusting murderers to a very poorly drawn Grim Reaper, it’s how you die that takes the gold medal for most violent death. And your paperboy dies the same way every time whether he has bumped into a gentle garden shrub or gotten run over by a Volkswagon Beetle. First there is the death sound, a blaring cacophony summoned from the throat of some hellish demon that is projected from your television 90 decibels louder than any other sound in the game. It is a fitting auditory sample to what has just happened to your paperboy: complete molecular breakdown. There is no bike. No jaunty baseball cap. All that remains is a pile of blue and yellow gore, bearing no semblance to the human being and bike it formerly possessed. Every accident in Paperboy triggers an act of atomic fission that unbinds the strongest elemental bonds, rendering both man and machine into an indistinguishable glob of crumpled pixels.

It’s amazing that NES programmers couldn’t program enemies from blindly running off cliffs to their deaths and yet the designers of Paperboy were able to incorporate the scaling theory of quantum breakdown in solids into their code All in the name of death. Alas poor Paperboy, we hardly knew ye.

Related posts:

1. Talus on my Mind I’ve resisted posting too much about Talus on the one-year...
2. Hot Air On the plane from Denver to Santa Clara, I have...
3. FARMAGGEDON! Wanted: Adventure seekers willing to endure the bone-splittingly boring drive...

Don't like the way you are born? Just roll again!

The game I speak of is the strategy-themed Nobunaga’s Amibition. You assume the role of a warlord (or Daimyo in Japanese parlance) tasked with uniting the country during a period of civil unrest. There are 49 other warlords competing to become the ruler of Japan. Once you’ve chosen your respective Daimyo, you are given a chance to determine their attributes on a scale from 59 -109, higher being better. Unlike real life, you can roll over as much as you want until you are dialed in with the best possible starting numbers.

As you can see there are five categories: Health, Drive, Luck, Charisma and IQ. Due to the limitations of 1980s programming, the only three stats that seem to really make much of a difference in the game are health, luck and charisma. Drive and intelligence play secondary roles in determining the effectiveness of your leaders. These are the “hardwired” stats your Daimyo begins with. Any fluctuations in these traits happens slowly over time and some, like charisma, are painfully difficult to improve if you start off with a low number.

Now, let’s get back to reality. All of us were given a similar roll when we were born, though as far as I can tell we didn’t get any do-overs. We roll on a much more diverse spectrum of categories than our video game counterparts. For example I scored quite low on “Quality Singing Voice” but did pretty good on “Better Than 20/20 Vision”.  I’d be hard pressed to equate the five game categories into my own life. I’d say I’ve had good health, luck and IQ. At times, my drive is pretty strong depending on the task though it’s prone to nosedive if I’m not vigilant. I’m probably a bit below average with charisma, mostly because I can’t tell a joke and all my pop-culture references revolve around old video games or Homestar Runner cartoons.

Every person you encounter has their own rolled stats. From those base numbers, it’s our choice to improve, ignore or be content with what we’ve been given. I think about some of my friends who have had to work incredibly hard for their personal victories. The complex network of circumstances dealt to us is an ancient source of fascination and one of the favorite forums for philosophers, theologians and scientists. Our advantage comes by having an awareness of our “stats” and the wisdom to know what we can and cannot improve. In most categories, we have some control over our “score”… but what about luck?

Did you get lucky today?

Luck is a beautiful thing. It keeps me leaning slightly more towards agnosticism than atheism. Luck is partially intangible. Luck also seems influenced by a positive mind set, hard work and the ability to see opportunity. I’ve always considered myself a fairly lucky person, a little bit because of the objective realities of my life but also because I tend to “think lucky”. It’s not that I assume I’m entitled to good fortune rather, I find that a lot of things out of my my immediate control seem to go better if I assume they will. It’s either completely naive or brilliant but either way, it’s more sophisticated than the clumsy ideology of positive thinking presented in such pop-culture treatises like The Secret. 

Getting back to our gaming metaphor, I think our “luck score” is not so much how lucky we will actually be but how tuned in we are to thinking lucky. Added to that is the respectful notion that luck is never going to be fully accountable for our success and failure, it merely illuminates possibility. Maybe luck is on par with karma or other misunderstood but thoroughly believed spiritual concepts. If you want to be luckier, there’s nothing wrong with thinking lucky thoughts.

If we had the chance, it would be folly not to roll the highest possible scores for ourselves. To modify the oft-mentioned Bill Parcells’ quote, “We are what our stats say we are!” Good. Be aware of them. And for those things you can change, if you are driven to do so, take heart. We might not have rolled high out of the box but thank goodness for hard work and occasional spark of luck. It keeps life interesting.

Related posts:

1. The Doper Next Door & Beyond It happens in very small increments: we get a step...
2. 2010: The Year in Music There are 525,948 minutes in a year. Trying to compress...
3. Hunting Accidents Are Hilarious Ever since Dick Cheney mistook his longtime friend’s face for...

I am constantly impressed by my friends and colleagues who are professional writers out of their 20s. Youth is the make-or-break time for most writers, the Little League of the literary world. Much like childhood sports, most everyone likes to participate to some degree until it becomes work or some superficial circumstance closes a door. I’ve always envied the focus, desire and commitment of professional athletes and I’ve also envied the relatively obvious road to success for those with an objective goal. The pro-athlete eats right, puts in gym time, studies their sport, shrugs off distractions and excels thanks to the notion of hard work. It’s something all great athletes have in common, from Bode Miller to Magic Johnson. The bulk of the challenge is behind the scenes.

It’s a bit trickier for writers since the road to success is more like an off-trail bushwack. When my writing has gone stale, I find that’s the best time to read authors who inspire and encourage me. Or I play darts for a while. Or dive into a video game. I’ve come to realize that hard work for writers comes in many different forms that have nothing to do with putting words down on paper. Lately, I’ve had a much better sense of the elements of hard work that go into writing.

It was a quote from Alex Lifeson (guitarist of the band Rush) that opened up a new way of thinking, a philosophy that is taking my writing to a new level. And while he meant it in the context of musicians, it works just as good for authors.

Great guitarists can both inspire and discourage. I began to look at their abilities as a gift, something to enjoy and absorb.

It’s a fairly advanced process to enjoy great writing without trying to emulate it or be intimidated by it. Thinking of it as a gift is wonderful because it puts into perspective the passion and purpose of one’s own writing. A little inspiration can go a long way.

Related posts:

1. Borders You might think my lack of blog productivity means I’ve...
2. Return of the Muse The best way I can sum up 2010 thus far:...
3. Blow the Man Down My earholes are still ringing from yesterday’s ill-advised mountain bike...

1. I’ll never pretend to throw something and not throw it. I know you’re tuned into the chase, it’s lame to not give you a chance to go for it full speed.
2. I’ll never post pictures of you in your cone of shame, should the day come that you need one.
3. The cat is free to swat you at her leisure and you’re not allowed to fight back. Sorry dude, she’s got seniority.
4. If you get in a fight with anyone other than the cat, I’m 100% on your side and we’ll figure out the details later.
5. I’ll do my best to learn to speak your language so that when you really need to tell me something, I’ll understand.
6. Visitors here need to know it’s our house and you do not need to be locked up in a room or stay off the furniture. They’ll have to deal with it.
7. If you must choose between rolling in and eating manure, I prefer you’d roll in it. Just be ready for a bath when you get home. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
8. When we go for runs together, I promise to stop and let you enjoy the things you like too, heartrate and personal best times be damned.
9. You will always get a treat for long days in the mountains, especially when you’re stuck in the truck for a long drive home.
10. Go ahead and hop on the bed when you’re ready to sleep, I’ll find space even if you’re sleeping on the pillows.

Related posts:

1. Border Collie Romp A few photos from a weekday romp with Fremont (now...
2. Outlive the Bastards “One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out....
3. Winter Dog Days Even though we have to take it easy until he’s...

Related posts:

1. The Blog is Dead, Long Live the Blog! I’ve known for quite some time WordPress is eighty-gajllion times...
2. What Dreams May Come Update: Here’s the link to the Elevation Outdoors High Altitude...
3. Borders You might think my lack of blog productivity means I’ve...

Hanging out with humans Tracy and Chelsea and dogs Mystic, Lilo and Belle in the days before Fremont - 2008 I believe!

Time: 1:12:05
Distance: 4.33 Miles
Elevation Gain: 1,722 Feet
Fremont’s  Good Citizen Grade: A
Today’s Play List: Metallica Before the Great Suck

Ah Thursdays, not much time to write thanks to lots o’ deadlines afoot. Today’s run was good and I was glad to run into my friend Chelsea and her pups Lilo and Belle. Chelsea and her hubby Richard left Colorado a few years back for Florida but recently returned, which is of course good news. It was good to see Chels and the pups again. Before they left for the east coast, we used to go on regular hikes in Boulder; the picture on the right is from Green Mountain. Now if we could only get Tracy back in Boulder again!

It’s amazing how many people are out hiking on Mount Sanitas in the morning, there had to be at least fifty people and twenty five dogs. It’s all good though, it gives Fremont the chance to socialize a bit more and he redeemed himself after a “B” performance with a solid “A” today.

One more day to complete the challenge and it looks like it’s going to be an afternoon run. I’m sure Fremont will be ready to go! Until then.

» Sanitas Challenge: Day 3
» Sanitas Challenge: Day 2
» 5 Day Sanitas Challenge Day 1

Related posts:

1. Sanitas Day 2: Outfoxed Time: 1:09:42 Distance: 4.33 Miles Elevation Gain: 1,722 Feet Fremont’s...
2. Sanitas Day 3: Do you Herd What I Herd? Time: 2:04:42 Distance: 6.2 Miles Elevation Gain: 1,997 Feet Fremont’s...
3. 5-Day Sanitas Challenge: Day 1 Time: 1:06:53 Distance: 4.33 Miles Elevation Gain: 1,722 Feet Fremont’s...