In five months, you'll miss being cold

A descent in Maine's coolest ice cave

I know this will sound crazy to those of you who spent this past weekend shoveling mounds of snow from your walkways or exhuming cars from freshly-plowed city streets, but you’re going to miss this. New England’s seasonal swings are ideal for sensualists—people who look forward to the cold shock of jumping into a pool after poaching themselves in the nearby jacuzzi. Whether it’s a broiling July afternoon or one of those days when the polar vortex forms over the northeast, you know that there are other climatological sensations to be savored, and you start craving them.

So as we fade into February—the month when New England winter loses its novelty and charm—I thought we’d look ahead to those miserable humid days to come and spotlight a little-known pocket of New England that experiences permanent winter.