What’s your coldest memory?
January 2014 at my house. Photo: Ellen Rocco
I’ve said it before and it really is true: I love the winter. I’m happy to get outside on snowshoes or skates, or just as happy to hunker in near the wood stove with a 600-page tome. Hearty soups and grainy bread. C’mon, it’s all good.
Mostly. Then there comes a moment–round about mid-February–when the sun is higher and the daylight lasts longer and the season starts tilting, albeit imperceptibly at first, toward Spring.
So, the forecast for this week–cold, colder, even colder by weekend–seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Isn’t it time to get going on maple sugaring? Or cleaning out and organizing the shed? Isn’t it supposed to be milder outside?
This all got me to thinking about the times I was coldest. There are a lot of examples. The first occurred within a couple of weeks of moving to the North Country. Living in an old farmhouse with marginal heating, zero insulation, and no (hot) running water, I fell into a just-thawed creek sometime in early March and thought I would die. Couldn’t get warm for what seemed like days.
Winter sun. Photo: Ellen Rocco
Another time, out cross-country skiing near my house I found myself breaking trail on a steep incline through moderately heavy woods and unexpectedly deep snow. It wasn’t super cold, about +10F, but dressed as one dresses to x-c ski (relatively lightweight clothing geared to constant and strenuous movement), when I became tangled up and semi-trapped in the deep snow, I started feeling hypothermia set in in what seemed like just minutes.
As a teenager, I remember a skiing trip to Killington. I had those useless old-fashioned boots and socks that were okay at +20F but ineffective on this particular -15F day on the slopes. By the time I made it back to the ski chalet, I collapsed in tears in the ladies room as I took off my footwear and the blood slowly returned.
Or the Christmas eve drive to Syracuse back in the early ’80s in a car without a heater, at -35F. Our hosts tipped us into a hot tub when we arrived shivering and stiff.
I’m not a winter mountain climber, back-country skier or Arctic explorer, but even these relatively mundane incidents (and there are lots more) occupy a permafrost ice cube in my brain.
Lay ’em on me…your stories of cold and colder. It will make this week seem warmer.
There was a winter with a really cold spell in ’80 or ’81 that it didn’t get above zero Fahrenheit for something like a month and was down to -25 or -30 most nights, colder in some places. My sister came home from college with some friends and we went skiing at Gore. Signs were posted about the cold giving a temperature of -27 at the base and wind chills as low as -80. Those were the days when people skiied in blue jeans with as many pair of cotton long-johns as seemed appropriate. We rode the triple up and as we approached the ridge near the top we heard people in the chairs ahead screaming. It was like a movie or nightmare where you’re trapped and the unknown danger keeps getting closer. As each chair crested the ridge there was tortured screaming and then the chair disappeared from sight. We finally crested the ridge and there was a strong wind blowing that almost literally took your breath away. We decided to take the gondola for the next runs and though it was cold we had a great day of skiing out of the wind on the north side. Snow is really nice when it is cold out.
That same winter I was working for a refrigeration and dairy equipment business in Vermont. My boss owned a camp on Lake Bomoseen and after a few days of unrelenting cold he began to worry about his water pump freezing so he sent me to pull the pump. His camp was on the west side of the lake down a long private road and nobody stayed there in the winter. I was probably a couple of miles from the nearest year round neighbor. I got to the camp and took my toolbag down to the pump house which was like a small dog house with hay over it and a line of buried black plastic pipe that ran down to the lake. He told me to just cut the pipe, pull the pump and bring it home. I took my hacksaw and made a few quick rasps at the pipe til it cut through. In that instant time slowed to a crawl. I saw that the pipe was not frozen, probably because the water was under pressure, and now that water was spraying up at me. I pictured myself being soaked with water and freezing to death before I could get to help, but by the time the water hit me it was already frozen spray. I dusted myself off, finished pulling the pump and drove back to Fair Haven.
Without a doubt, riding the old double chairlift at Gore Mt. Pre-gondola days. I’m talking the mid-1960s.
I haven’t skied Gore in a long, long time, but the double chair first went up, then flattened out to get to the top of the lift. The wind just howled over the ridge. After a while…maybe a year?… Gore started providing blankets. You had to huddle completely under the blanket and watch the numbers on the towers in order to emerge in time to be dumped off. It was incredibly cold, but at 12 years-old…do-able.
I have such great memories of Gore’s early seasons. We skied there almost every weekend from the first season till 1970 or so. You could go to church on the way, in Warrensburg, where you weren’t out of place in your ski clothes. My Dad worked for the state, and I believe the first season Gore opened we had free passes. Then we got discounts, as a perk. $2.50 a day, then $6. Those were the days!!
My brother found Gore boring, though. He preferred Hickory Hill.
Coldest (and warmest) ever was as a paperboy in the late ’60s. I delivered on bicycle all winter. One 20-below windy day, I stopped after my route at the hospital to get some hot chocolate. My hands were numb, so I went into the bathroom to run lukewarm water on my hands. An orderly found me semi-conscious and hypothermic. Next thing I remember I was floating in rosy bliss. My neighbor, a nurse, had popped me into a warm hydrotherapy bath to bring up my body temperature. I’ve been a hot tub fan ever since.
Imagination and faulty memories are the usual suspects when people start talking about how cold or how snowy it was in the past.
Except for maybe Alaska, and even there it would need to be in the deep interior, I doubt there has ever been a month anywhere in the United States and certainly not in the Adirondacks where the temperature never rose above zero an entire month.
Pete: Ever been cold? Very cold? Painfully cold? Tell us about that. Thanks.
Growing up on Maui, one Christmas my mainland cousins came to visit. What passed for a cold snap in the islands rolled through, with overnight temps plummeting to the (gasp!) upper 50’s. The next morning I worriedly asked if they’d had enough blankets. They rolled their eyes and said, “Are you kidding? It finally got cool enough to sleep comfortably!”
Laugh all you want, but just remember few houses there have insulation or heating. Anything below 70 feels pretty darned cold.
On moving to Ontario one of the big mental shifts to grapple with was how ordinary weather in this part of the continent can flat out kill you. People here are tough cookies! (Although many can’t seem to take much heat.)
Same planet, different worlds.
I think it was early in 1995 on a Sunday morning when at -40 my truck would not start and for some reason I looked underneath and saw the thick lube in the standard transmission had pushed the rear seal out as the starter had tried to spin the engine.
Then there was March 2 1978 I slept outside beside my VW parked near the Adirondack Lodge prior to a climb up Mt. Marcy. The radio said it was 17 below in town.
I am often outside in the course of my work on these cold days. Two weeks ago tomorrow it was -20 in the morning and 8 near noon around Jay.
I took my kids out one night when it was full moon and 20 or so below just to experience the cold cold air. We were outside about 3 times as long as it took to bundle them up.
Maybe that is why my son has left the house only once this season to get on the bus when he wore more than a T shirt and pants. It is only 40 yards but…
Potsdam in February (either ’94 or ’95). Wake up one day at Clarkson and walk to class and see kids in shorts playing ultimate frisbee on the grass. It’s in the mid 40s.
That night, I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and walk by the thermometer on my window. I can barely see any mercury. It’s -49 degrees.
The temperature dropped 95 degrees in about 15 hours.
Ellen,
The coldest I ever was when my car broke down on the Northway one winter day back in the 70’s.
I think it was about 10 F and I wasn’t wearing a coat, only a suit, because I was in sales and wearing a coat was viewed by me as something I would just take off before making a sales call. I walked about a half mile to the nearest emergency phone and then went back to the car and waited for about an hour before the tow truck came along and towed me into Plattsburgh.
First thing I did after checking into a motel was to turn up the heat in the room and take a hot bath, none for the wear of being really cold.
Never was that stupid again.
The other being really cold incident happened back in the 50’s when I fell through the ice next to a dock where I had been skating. I grabbed the dock when I broke through the ice and thus only went in the water up to my waist. The incident took place somewhere between a half mile to a mile from the house. I had ridden my bike to go skating and by the time I got home, I was having a hard time peddling since my pants had frozen.
Once again I took a hot bath and all was well.
I love the cold. I’m hoping the next ice age will start soon – really soon.
Feeling cold has little to do with the actual temperature. It has everything to do with how well you are dressed, how well you are feeling and dampness/wetness.
Fresh water freezes at 32 F. Ocean water freezes at 28 F. Both fresh and salt water feel much colder than zero even if you were totally naked.
I love winter… the squeak of cold snow,the color of light, moon shadows. And one night at Big Moose Lake was the best! Steve and I were spending the week with friends… skiing, snowshoeing, taking photos. Wool pants and long underwear, fluffy down parkas, hand-knit hats, scarves and mittens barely kept us warm. Temps stayed at or below zero. One evening we waxed skis and headed out onto the ice of North Bay; set up the tripod and skied in figure eights… and waited. First, a faint glow near West Mountain. The camera came out from under Steve’s parka, was secured to the tripod and the full moon rising was captured on film. Moon shadows surrounded us, in the woods you could see colors and the trees chimed with the cold. Coming inside, the camera instantly frosted over as it was placed on the kitchen table. That night the temperature dropped to -48.
Cold is when you have to heat a tea kettle of water to the boiling point on the wood stove so you can prime the pump in the barn at 5 in the morning. Colder still is pumping the cold water into buckets and carrying them sloshing over into your rubber boots to thirsty livestock. Colder still is lugging water back to the house for drinking, cooking,bathing, etc. Coldest of all is forgetting to refill the tea kettle before draining the pump. This was our twice-daily winter routine growing up in St. Lawrence County in the 60-70’s.
Memo to Pete Klien: Ellen is correct. On Christmas Eve the morning started at 56 F, but by midnight it was about -20 F and around -40 by morning. It never got above 0 F until some time in February. I recall well that the day it finally did get to 0 F it felt so warm that I left my gloves in the car when I went in to buy groceries. It was a winter to remember. We tried to go skiing one time at 7 Springs, but the lift was closed because it was too cold to be safe to ski.
The coldest I ever was was one time when, wearing the light layers one wears for cross country skiing, and about a a half mile from the road and the car, one of my skis ran under a fallen branch hidden under the snow we were breaking trail on, and I was unaware of it until my ankle hit the branch and I was thrown forward off the ski, breaking the binding so that I could no longer fasten my boot to the ski. Also, I had badly sprained my knee and ankle, and hurt my back, and I had to get back out to the car. I was all sweaty when I had the fall, and that froze on my clothes and as I could only move at about the speed of a fast snail, by the time I got to the car about 45 minutes later I was in bad shape. I can feel it now, as I think about it. And I have never really been comfortable cross country skiing after that.
I’m not “from here.” I’ve lived here for decades, but still, I’m not “from here.” An “alien.” From (gasp) “The City” ie, the metro NYC area. I will never be “from here” no matter how long it takes for me to die-here.
My first winter (’80-’81) the older lady I rented a room from said the day after Xmas, “Stick your nose out there and tell me what you think…” My nose froze immediately. I had on a dress coat that hung to my ankles. Mon Dieu, my lungs felt as if they had frozen with my first breath. Vanity lost all it’s appeal to this young woman. A local whose truck started bought me to Massena where there was a shop for Men and Women. I gratefully tried on a Man’s down coat that covered my butt. Made a believer of me immediately. I worked outside of Oswego and the heater in my vehicle was questionable at best: I chipped ice off the *inside* of my windshield and experienced my first “white out” on 81: Holey c***!
I married a Tundra Man some years later. For sure, maybe it was my state of mind but the first winter after he died? I managed. The second year, the winter of ’93-94 was brutal: Cold AND snow. Every morning, it seemed I was clearing 4-6 in. of fresh snow. And the wind was relentless. My hands and feet froze with depressing regularly; I know how painful this is: A few years later, the local hunters and trappers introduced me to the microwavable hand and feet warmers. I remain indebted to these men who cared enough to show me how to survive and thrive in brutal cold. The North Country is my choice of “home.” I could have lived or moved anywhere. I chose to live here because of the people.
Stand-offish? Yeah, they are. Helpful and caring? Beyond words: Just ask a local-they’ll tell you and yes, they will help you. It’s cold weather is matched by the warm hearts: No matter how frozen I’ve been, some local has given me a “defrost recipe” for mind, body, spirit and soul.
You all don’t realize just how special you are…
“…with depressing *regularity*.”
A few strokes later and my spelling and syntax really s***.
Thanks.
You all will forgive me because I know how forgiving you are.
Otherwise? I wouldn’t be here 😉
The night the water bottle froze inside my winter sleeping bag. We were camping at South Meadows before skiing up Whiteface the next day. The tent folded up like a giant green taco shell the next morning. Thawed the bottle at HoJo’s in Lake Placid and had a great trip up (and down) Whiteface.
By the way, for a great cold story, read “The Worst Journey in the World” by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
I recall the cold snap that Mike referred to in 80/81 and I agree with Pete it was not a full month; however, it was 8-10 days last week of Feb first week of Mar during which it was near zero F or below during the day and -20 to -30 F at night. I had my first farm in Peru, NY at the time and the folks who had owned it for decades, before I bought it from a bank which had foreclosed on the fellow who bought it from them a few years back, told me that the water pipes to the barn had frozen four feet in the ground sometime in the late 60’s early 70’s and they had dug them up and re-buried them 6 feet down never expecting them to freeze again. They froze that Winter during the cold snap and I don’t recall them thawing until sometime in late Apr early May.
I worked at PAFB from 78-87 and as I recall the SOP for wind chill caused flight operations suspension was something around -75F wind chill and there were a number days during those 9 years when flight ops were suspended for a period of time on some days. The lowest wind chill I was exposed to was on the farm one Winter day in the early/mid 80’s I was cutting wood (dead/downed trees on a pasture fence line) where I was exposed to the wind and the temp was a balmy -30F. I knew the wind chill was severe but when I went up the house to warm up and turned on the Burlington noon news I was surprised to hear their weather person estimate that the wind chill was nearly -100F based upon the wind chill equations used at the time for 25/35 mph winds with gusts 45/50; today those estimates would be a balmy -75F based upon the wind chill equations used today.
In reality the wind chill has been the real driver for cold this Winter not so much the cold temperatures. Is it not interesting that a single cold Winter, reminiscent of 50’s-80’s and the vaunted 100, 200, ., ., 1000 year supply of natural gas and the oil being sucked out of the Dakota’s which is going to allow the US to become “energy independent” was unable to keep the supply sufficiently well satisfied to hold prices in check this Winter. How goes that old axiom “in times of surplus prices go down; in times of scarcity prices go up”? Any guesses as to why fuel prices are rising this Winter?
Two memories:
Standing on the shore of the Baltic Sea in Helsinki Finland -28C (100% humidity). That was the coldest thing I had ever felt. The drier air in the Adirondacks is a blessing.
Christmas morning in the early eighties Saranac Lake, NY. We had a thermometer that maxed out at -50F. It was red-lined!
Ken, I worked outside in it every day. It sure felt like a month.
When my 4 children were young for winter fun we would rent a cabin in Allegany State Park and spend a few days skating, skiing and sledding. Waking in the morning in an uninsulated cabin with the light of day peeking between the board walls, it was always interesting to see who would ‘cave’ first, crawl out of their warm sleeping bag onto the frozen floor boards and get the stove fire going. After a hot breakfast and bundling up, off we’d go for a day of fun in the snow. We would return to the cabin at the end our day, crank up the stove, cook dinner and enjoy the evening…many times outside for a ski or skate or snowball fight.
I don’t know how cold it was…didn’t seem to matter at that stage of life.
On one of our many winter camping trips, my sister and her family joined us. Carol was a bit of a ‘princess’ and, as such, brought an electric blanket with her. We all made fun of her, yet, ultimately, everyone tried to snuggle with her under her toasty bedding!
Good times those were, indeed.