Last week’s weather resulted in three consecutive days of lifts on wind-hold and provided a great set-up for this week’s column. Over the next couple of columns, I’m going to compare the challenges of skiing in frigid weather in the Retro-Ski days (1950s-1980s) versus today. By “frigid” I mean when temperatures never get above zero (F), and that’s without wind chill!

Thanks to climate change we don’t have as many frigid days as we used to in the Retro-Ski era. We particularly don’t have the 5-10 day stretches where the daytime highs were below zero and the nights dropped to 20 and even 30 below. Last week’s trivia question asked what the coldest temperature recorded on Mt Mansfield was. Chuck Perkins had the answer that it was -39F recorded on January 9, 1968. That must have been a four blanket day on the single chair!

On frigid Retro-Ski days sometimes the first challenge was getting the car started! After a 25-below night, cars of that era weren’t always easy to start. There were a couple of causes. First, cars used to have carburetors whose purpose was to mix air and gas to feed the cylinders in the engine. Carburetors had a difficult time getting that mix right on cold days so it could take a lot of cranking the starter to get all the cylinders firing. Sometimes you had to pull out your handy spray can of ether and spray it directly into the carburetor to get things going. By the way, too much ether could produce an exciting small explosion. Don’t ask how I know that.

The second cause was battery technology. Even today batteries don’t work as well in cold weather, but they were worse 50 years ago! And all that extra cranking thanks to the carburetor took its toll. During the winter you always carried a set of jumper cables just in case. There are probably still people who do that. In the early 1970s I was rooming in a house with three other guys. We had four cars among us and our goal on those frigid mornings was to get at least one started and then use jumpers to start the other vehicles. Only once did we strike out completely.

I always heard that one of the tricks to get more out of your battery on that important first attempt was to briefly turn on your headlights. That would start the reaction in the battery and warm it up which would give it more cranking power. That was the theory and I’m wondering if any readers had any experience trying that?

So why don’t we have these problems today? Fuel injection! Sophisticated electronics now manage the air fuel mix and inject it directly into each combustion chamber. Today when you hit that start button, the engine instantly fires up. No more holding that key in the start position while the cylinders vote on whether the engine will start or not.

Battery technology has also improved although they still have a finite life expectancy. I believe car designers do feel that batteries no longer need to be accessible. Using jumper cables isn’t as easy as it used to be and replacing a battery can require a technician.