It was negative 13 this morning, and I think I had it bad... at least I'm not a stage driver.

“The winter and spring break-ups were the most trying times for stage driving. At thos [sic] times it was humorously said that the first class passengers rode, the second class passengers walked and the third class carried poles to pry the vehicle out of the mud. During these trying times of the year it was not unusual for the stage company to keep seventy-five to eighty head of horses ready for use at the various stations, and at one time Whipple and Shaw had one hundred head of horses ready for service.
"The arrival of the stage coach was an event of importance in the early days and the stage driver himself was a man of importance. Perhaps he was not so great a man in the early buckboard days as he was a little later when he was conductor of a big Concord coach and could ‘pull the ribbons over six’ as he whirled through the valleys and over the hills. In the winter a big sleigh was used unless severe storms made a ‘single bob' advisable until the roads could be broken. Stage drivers did the shopping for scores of ranchmen and their wives and accommodated everybody. Many of these isolated settlers could not get to town and they would send by the driver for their tobacco and calico and about everything else they required. Drivers have been known to come into town with orders for the purchase of a score of articles on a single trip. Their good graces were sought by merchants and also by hotel owners for their favor meant lots of trade.
“In the spring the trails would begin to thaw out or break up, teams could travel only after night when trails were frozen. Forty years ago when a half dozen of the railroads of the state were blockaded from two weeks to as many months the Steamboat-Wolcott stage made it thru every day. If a stage did not arrive on time another team would be sent out. There were times when nine stage outfits were on the road at the same time, each trying to reach the other and carry the mail a little farther toward its destination. There was one time in a spring break-up when three men with a fresh team were four hours going half a mile. All stretches of road where drifts were likely, particularly those toward Hahns Peak, were staked with willows to enable team and driver to follow the road. Snow teams became so expert that according to stage drivers ‘they could walk on a clothes line.’” (Leckenby 58-60)