What’s the Coldest You’ve Ever Been?

This is the first “Topical Tuesday” post and what topic is being discussed more than this week’s cold weather?  Today’s high here in Harrisburg is supposed to be 12 degrees which is actually quite balmy as compared to what others are dealing with.  I saw an article which mentioned a town in Minnesota where the wind chill is -65.  So all this got me to thinking…when was I the coldest in my life?  The answer was quite easy to come up with.

In my Sophomore year of college my friends and I were going to go somewhere south and warm for Spring Break but instead ended up renting a few cabins in the mountains of MD.  Our first day, we were having a great time, hiking around various trails, even though it was quite cold.  The plan the next day was a 4 mile hike through pretty rugged terrain to the Sideling Hill Road Cut and then hitch a ride back to our camp site.

Much to our surprise we woke up the next morning to 6 inches of snow already on the ground and it still snowing hard.  Being 8, “were indestructible” men, we decided to do the hike  anyway.  About a mile in 2 of the guys turned around and went back.  The rest of us proceeded up and down the smaller mountains and hills.  On the west side of the mountains the snow was knee deep from a snow fall the previous week that hadn’t melted.  We kept climbing peaks thinking we’d be able to see how far we were to the cut, but at some points it was near white out conditions.

This is when  it started to get a bit scary.  We were far enough along that it was too late to turn back, but yet we had no idea how much longer it was until the cut.  We had anticipated a 1/2 day trip but not it was starting to get dark…we were getting hungry again and oh my goodness were we freezing cold.  Thankfully we finally found a road and a carpet installation company van, saw us trudging along and asked if we were lost.  “NO, just hiking…but we sure could use a ride”.

Back at the cabins, it was not until the next day that I felt like I wasn’t cold anymore.  Looking back, there were so many stupid mistakes made by doing this, but it will always be a memory I have.  So what about you…what’s the coldest you’ve ever been?