It was negative 30 at night. Have you ever slept in a 1950s surplus Army sleeping bag? I have one of them. It's AWFUL.
I've never been outside in negative 10 weather. Zero degree weather a coupla few times. But always less than half an hour.
Outside for days? No thank you!
"Hey, T-Bolt, don't you talk about retiring to Cleveland?"
Yeah? And?
"No reason."
Early Dec, 1976. First week? Deer hunting in North East PA (NY border). Saw a deer with a HUGE rack, just above the cabin near the apple tree, while I was running down the (steep) hill. Probably thought I was a bear, until I stopped moving, and raised my long stick (mod 94 lever action) and he took off keeping a couple trees between us.
ReplyDeleteThat night, it got really cold. The guys couldn't keep the heater running, as the fuel line froze up, I think. Two story log cabin, upstairs filled with cots. Kitchen thermometer showed -12F, and the direct to ground hand water pump for the sink was frozen up. The guys decided to call it quits for the year, and we got ready to leave. Dad and I were using a couple of Air Force mummy sleeping bags that were comfortable that night (I never woke up while they dealt with the heater), but the other guys didn't have bags nearly as good.
The rubber seal for the tailgate window of Dad's Falcon wagon shattered when he rolled the window down to load our gear. (no idea how cold it was outside) We had to jack it up to hammer the muffler back on the pipe, since dad knocked it loose on rough ground while parking when we arrived. I wanted to try staying another day, but no one else would. One of the guys broke an axle shaft on his pickup (long rough dirt/gravel driveway, 1/4 mile?)
So, we get home to the south Jersey Shore (Wildwood), where it is only -8F(!), and the back harbor area is a sheet of ice a foot thick. The tide proceeds to lift all the dock pilings out of the bottom mud over a couple days of sliding down and re-freezing to lift them a few more feet. We chopped ice around a couple boats that were still in the water, to keep them from possibly crushing, and tied lines to all the pilings so they wouldn't float away when the ice melted. (summer resort area, not many people around) Every dock was ruined. Weird to watch waves breaking on snow drifts on the beach.
It stayed that cold for a week.
In Silicon Valley about '91, it got down to 12F for a week. LOTS of trees were damaged or killed, as that was an unprecedented cold spell for the San Jose area. Might have been 15 trees lost at the place I rented.
I remember that. My Mom showed 7 year old me the temp was 0 on the thermometer in Gaithersburg Maryland. It was extraordinary enough for her, from Kalamazoo, pointed it out.
ReplyDeleteI've been out on night patrols in -40 degrees. Tears froze my glasses to my cheeks. Stupid Lieutenant wouldn't release the parkas because we might get them dirty. And then yelled at me because I had a hat on under my helmet. I told him if he didn't like it, he could take my place outside.
ReplyDeleteColdest I've ever been was skidding logs out of Vermont woods during the winter, driving an open-seated tractor.
ReplyDeleteKorea in February, up near the DMZ, old military cold weather gear and sleeping bags. Yea, it was peacetime and we weren't shooting or being shot at, but it was as cold as I've been.
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