Idaho Feels a Lot Like the Klondike This Week

No Matter How You Slice it, the Weather is Bitter Cold

I like to visit Stanley in autumn as the leaves change color during the day. Nights are cold. This morning, Stanley bottomed out at 30 degrees below zero. Or that was the lowest reading I saw online. Challis was at 12 below at the same time, and a friend told me his home weather station in Fairfield bottomed out at minus 32 degrees.

Twin Falls and its 10 degrees at the time weren’t considered warm, but it was more than a 40-degree temperature swing.

Look, I don’t like cold weather and I like it even less as I reach my old age, but I realize there are good reasons to live in some of our mountain communities.

Why do People Choose to Live Here?

The scenery is beautiful 365 days of the year. There aren’t many noisy neighbors (what neighbors?) Crime is low. There aren’t many criminals because there aren’t many people. But cold weather at best is an inconvenience.

The coldest I’ve ever been was on a January morning at Raquette Lake, New York, deep in the Adirondack Forest. You can’t start a car at 46 below zero. That was the temperature without the chill factored in. It took a sideline heater under the vehicle to get me moving after half an hour.

The night before I slept in a chair in my cabin, at the edge of a heating vent on the floor, with a blanket wrapped around me.

It Takes Preparation and Strength to Get By

Things were even worse for people with diesel fuel. It jellies in the cold.

People who live in places where it gets cold on a routine basis are prepared. Plumbing is winterized, they have engine block heaters and, of course, clothing for the weather.

I keep telling myself I could live in those places, as long as I could work from home and didn’t have to go outside when it’s 30 below, but I’ve never attempted it for more than a few days. There are some rugged people in Idaho’s mountains.