This got me thinking. What's the coldest place you've ever skied?
Here's mine:
A friend and I used to go to Quebec, Canada every year after Christmas (or Maine) as winter set earlier up in the northern reaches earlier then VT or Nh. One year, we went up to Quebec City during an Artic outbreak. Holy cripes, I've never seen cold like this. Daytime high temps were -25F to -30F and nighttime temps simmered at -40F to -50F. My car froze the first night, necesitating shots of whiskey with the Russian couple next store to our hotel room who also had a car that wouldn't start. A couple hours later, and $150 lighter after my car was towed to a garage to have the oil drained, my friend Rob and I drove north. After an hour and a half we missed the turn for Le Massif and drove another hour north into far, far northern Quebec. We ended up at a tiny local hill, Mt Grand Fonds, and skied with the eskimos in the half light of midday with the temp around -30F. Just north we could see the rolling hills stretching off into the boreal forest, a reddish hue in the sky and low fozen clouds, the cold air like a dense blanket over the land.
On the drive back south, the heater cranked full blast and was only able to clear a small patch in the windshield, the cold was taking over. That night we rigged an extention cord from our hotel out to our car and kept a utility light under a blanket in the engine compartment so our new oil wouldn't freeze again. The next day we skied a foot of true cold smoke at Mt St Anne, learning how to ski with just the slits of my eyes showing from behind my balaclava, hat, neoprene face mask and turtle fur neck gaiter.
When we hit the boarder once again, the 20F air in the NE felt like a summer day in Fiji.
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