Peter Sinks

I think -15 is the coldest I've ever experience.
Last winter (or the winter before?) we had a really cold snap in SLC and I headed out snowshoeing in upper City Creek in early morning and the cold air in the canyon bottom iced up all exposed parts of my face, I could hardly see through the ice hanging off my eyelashes, and it was only like -3.
 
In 1991 we moved from San Diego to Ophir, Co. We rented a small house with wood heat only. Nancy was 7 months pregnant. Two weeks after our son was born we had three days of -32 degree weather. Quite the introduction to Colorado.
 
Peter Sinks? I went to school in Logan and Peter Sinks is a popular snowmobile area, infamous for being a bit chilly. :)

Growing up in NW Colorado we had a few nights where the thermometer registered in the minus 40s. As a kid, my job was to chop the ice on the horses’ stock tank. Sometimes I feel like I grew up in Alaska. I remember listening to the house groan from the contraction and expansion. The Colorado state record low of minus 61 (IIRC) was set in Maybell, not that far from where I lived.

ETA my sister moved to Hawaii when she grew up and would visit only in the summer.
 
Last edited:
Have spent some time outside in temps around -10 to -20. We get those temps a few times a winter, it seems. Management of perspiration and exposed skin gets to be really important. Any wind is brutally cold.

I think the coldest I recall here was actually the first of this year, it showed I think -26 at my house.

My favorite winter hikes are dead calm sunny days at 0-5 degrees.
 
When you first exhale and it clears... but then when you inhale your nose freezes shut and your eyes cannot even water.

All of Ottawa was closed on account of the cold on a windy but "sunny" January morning with an arctic front overhead in that dang river valley. It was the one morning I did not wear my sorels to walk a quarter mile to find out buses were not running and was in dress shoes instead.
Bad mistake.

For sleeping outside, single digits are the lower limit so far. Low twenties to teens a couple of weeks ago were actually not that bad, but no wind either.
 
-17 for me in Logan back in 1987. I think the next night got down to -13 before warming to a balmy -6. On the minus seventeen night, I had to ride the girl I was dating at the time through campus and down off of Old Main Hill on my mountain bike. It was a frigid ride back up the hill as I recall.

@Rockskipper , I didn't realize that you were a fellow Aggie. I knew there was something I liked about you. :D When did you attend USU?
 
Yes, Aggies are unique, and thanks for the compliment. ;) It takes a very special person to survive the brutal winters in Logan. Riding the hill in the winter would be a great way to get frostbite. Sometimes I thought I was going to get frostbite just riding the bus. I graduated 20 years ago - yikes!
 
I was there 20 years ago too... double yikes!

Logan always was so bitter between Thanksgiving and finals. Maybe after Christmas and in January I was just numb to it by then.

I do remember a few weeks the highs were in the teens and the fog thickened. So we would go skiing in the 30s and sunny, and it was HEAVEN.
 
I recall the air pollution being really really bad in the winter. I would go up Logan Canyon and the further up I got, the better the air. Sometimes I would drive up the canyon past the Peter Sinks area to the overlook above Garden City just to get out, if the roads weren't slick. But one very cool thing was all the hawks that wintered over there. I had a lot of fun cruising around fields north of town taking photos - sometimes I'd see a dozen sitting on one fence line.

The traffic was starting to get really bad, but I do miss the area sometimes. If winters weren't so cold I might like living on the outskirts. I also liked going to Hardware Ranch to see the elk.
 
Now that the temperature is to where Fahrenheit and Celsius cross it finally sounds appealing!
And this is not wind chill correct? if there is wind and I can break my record, then I am in.

But for the night? or just to look at the stars and go back to somewhere like Angies to drink something warm?
 
I would nohow spend the night there! A late hike then Angies does sound excellent.
 
Honestly, tempting. Maybe the next cold front. This is just the wrong time for me...
Even better if I could get an old friend or two to give a lift on a snowmobile... though not as epic as the snowshoe miles would be.
 
Similar threads
Thread starter Title Forum Replies Date
regehr Peter Sinks General Discussion 14
BJett Little River - Sinks to Elbow On The Water 9

Similar threads

Back
Top