The coldest winters I ever experienced, were in eastern Montana. One day in particular, back in the early 1980's, when I lived in Havre, Montana, the wind chill factor was 100 degrees F. below zero.
The winds were screaming that day and even inside a heated building you were cold, and a heavy sweater didn't help much. If you faced the wall your front was cold and your back was warm. Cold pressed into the walls like spears of glacial ice were about to stab through the building, and into your body.
The story of 100 F. below zero wind chill factor, was probably an exaggeration, but I suspect it wasn't far off. To obtain a wind chill of -100, the temperature has to be - 45 degrees or colder, with winds over 60 miles per hour. That combination is possible, on the high plains.
The Montanans call the big storms and cold fronts that roar in from Canada, the Siberian Express.
Another memorable freeze-out, was the time I climbed Crow Peak (9,300 feet elevation), in Montana, back in January of 1973. The main summit of Crow Peak is above timber line, with no trees except for a few gnarly patches of krummholz. In German krumm means “crooked, bent, or twisted” and holz means “wood”. The fierce winter gales, and extreme low temperatures of Montana winter, turn high elevation trees into stunted low growing shrubs, that take foothold in the lee side of large rocks, or low spots in the terrain. An arctic environment. The lower elevations are forested with lodgepole pine, aspen, spruce and limber pine.
Four of us snowshoed into Leslie Lake, at 8100 feet, and stayed two nights at an abandoned miners cabin, which was in disrepair but offered 4 walls and a roof and an old wood stove that was functional. I suspect that the cabin is long gone, crushed by deep winter snows or ambushed by avalanches. Or torn down by looters. We took a day trip and ascended Crow Peak, on snowshoes, and once on the summit the wind was screaming, and it was incredibly cold. A retreat was in order. I had taken off my snowshoes and when I attempted to strap them back on I was unable to, because my hands were so cold. Numb and almost useless. One of my friends luckily had nimble enough hands to help me buckle them back on and we were soon traversing our way back to the cabin.
A couple years later two of my friends decided to mount a winter expedition to Leslie Lake. On the return trip out they attempted to cross a steep and icy slope, and they were unable to kick footholds with their skis and snowshoes and every step they slid a few feet closer to the bottom of a gorge. Each slip brought them closer to trouble and calamity. Darkness bore down and they were forced to bivouac in the canyon bottom, in several feet of snow. In the seemingly endless arctic night of Montana they huddled and shivered together, in one sleeping bag. With frost bitten feet, they hiked out the next day to the trail head.
I checked out the statistics on the coldest place in the Rocky Mountains, and there were some surprises. The Western Region Climate Center has the statistics by State, for record values:
Record Lowest Recorded Temperatures (degrees F)
Alaska: -80 at Prospect Creek Camp
Colorado: -61 at Maybell
Idaho: - 60 at Island Park Dam
Montana: -70 at Rogers Pass
Utah: -69 at Peter's Sink
Wyoming: -66 at Riverside R.S.
Alberta, Canada: -78 at Fort Vermillion
There are probably other weather stations out there that are record holders, or near record holders, but never received credit, because the data was lost or never recorded. My friend Steve tells me that the Taylor Park weather station (10,410 feet) in Colorado, has registered two observations at -60 degrees. For many years the Taylor Park was a manual station, and often times in the winter the weather data was never recorded, because it involved someone slogging for many miles through deep snows and frigid temperatures. The Maybell station is the current record holder, in Colorado, for lowest temperature recorded, at -61.
The Taylor Park station holds one weather record for Colorado, for the longest number of days, with a temperature of <= 32 degrees, which was for 310 days. A krummholz kinda summer. Perhaps one day the big chill will occur and Taylor Park will trounce the Maybell record. If not the current second place record will be condemned to haunt the data vaults, in Stygian exile.
The record in Montana, for the longest number of days with a temperature of <=32 degrees, is 251 days, set by West Yellowstone station, at a whopping 6,668 feet elevation. Montana, you can do better.
The wind speed, as well as temperature, needs to be factored in when calculating wind chill (how cold it really feels). In reviewing the State records for average wind speed and and I figured Wyoming or Montana would have the highest average speeds. Wrong. Not even close. Colorado has two stations that top the record for the highest average annual wind speed with Monarch Pass at 19 mph (over 11,000 feet elevation) and La Veta pass at 16 mph at (9,400 feet elevation). Monarch Pass is an extremely cold place, but at least you can drop down into the trees or a canyon to escape the wind.
What does all this data really mean or prove? Its just a bunch of statistics generated by weather stations scattered here and there.
I think the coldest place in the world is near a small cone shaped mountain called Haystack Butte, in the Sweetgrass Hills, north of Chester Montana, out on the treeless Great Plains, which is just a few miles from the Canadian Border. A great norther or Siberian Express can work up quite a head of steam, with nary even a twig to slow it down, between northern Alberta and Montana. The first obstacle this glacial air mass encounters, once it crosses the border, is the Sweetgrass Hills, which it smashes into and breaks with great fury, like a monster wave hitting a huge rock on the Pacific coast.
Try finding a place out of the wind on the open prairie. Other than a local tavern which sometimes functions more like a mountaineers hut, than a watering hole.
So I will cast my lot with eastern Montana, being the coldest place in Rocky Mountains, with the high plains of Wyoming coming in second.
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