An Arctic Front

We arrived on Monday, January 8th (because only truly sane people move to Montana in the dead of winter) and I parked my car to be unloaded. And that is the last time my car has started without the assistance of some jumper cables. The locals told us that they were expecting an "arctic front." Now, I'm from Pennsylvania; I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of winter. However, arctic fronts, these are new to me.

My first true artic front experience happened at about 6:35 am (no I don't normally go to work this early--it was a special occasion) Friday, December 10th. Fortunately, I was getting to go to Old Faithful but we
had to take a snowcoach (in the winter there is no over the road travel in the park--everyone takes either a snowcoach--a van on snowmobile wheels, or a snowmobile everywhere) to sit in on a training class. I was truly estatic to be getting into the park so soon after my arrival. I was told that normally when we (my boss, Peggy, and I) go to Old Faithful for training in the winter we take snowmobiles (they arrive quicker). However, the weather was too cold (frostbite was too much of an inherent danger). So, we had only one other option: the employee "express" (nothing that takes 2 hours should be deemed "express) snow coach that departed at 7am. Determined from the get go that I would be walking to work (as it is no more than 4 blocks away), I checked the thermometer at the house, which read about -20 F and thought that it must be off. I bundled up and walked my four blocks. In that time the few hairs sticking out from under my hat had frosted over and each of my eyelashes had gathered a dense layer of ice. Absolutely phenomenal. Perhaps the thermometer was not as off as I had thought.

After a majestic 2 hour ride in the snow coach we arrived at Old Faithful. Where I had my second true arctic fornt experience. It was now 9 am and the sun had been up for over an hour. The temperature at Old Faithful (deep in the park and at a much higher elevation than my home): -30 F. But that was warm compared to the -43 F it had been earlier that morning. Despite the temperature the day was beautiful. Crisp, clear, gorgeous January weather.