"How cold does it get up there?" is one of the top five questions that admissions officers field, particularly when working the warmer climates. "But," said Beverage, "the kids often ask this with a twinkle in their eyes." And they don't want a lukewarm answer. ("Two and a half feet below zero!" Koons would tell them.) Many are interested in Colby in part because Maine has an exaggerated reputation for being exotically cold. "You wouldn't want to plan an adventure in the Amazon jungle and have someone tell you it's not really that hot," Beverage said.     As a student worker in admissions and financial aid, Leff has heard the questions when prospective students visit Colby. "It's the parents who really worry. For them it's a real concern," he said.     Sarah Heath '98 came from Albuquerque, N.M., over howls of disbelief from her friends and relatives there. Her father, who grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., took her to L.L. Bean at the start of her first year. "He got me the warmest jacket they make, because he was really worried about me. It's under my bed now in a plastic bag," she said, despite the early snow and cold. "I've gotten tough. I can handle it," she said, noting that she's learned to pace herself dressing for the weather and now saves the heavy coat for after the holiday break.     Maine native Matthew Russ '96, who transferred to Colby from Brown University and now works in admissions, first came to look at Colby in January. "I arrived in the middle of a blizzard and was absolutely delighted. You couldn't have created a more enticing scene for me," he said. "Everybody up here was really fired up about the storm, and I kept thinking, `they're probably getting rain and sleet down in Providence.' I waded thigh deep in snow into the arboretum, all the way down to the stream. I had a blast."     People who have spent winters on Mayflower Hill talk about that physical relationship with snow--wading and wallowing in it, jumping into drifts and piles, making snow angels, shaking pine trees and having it sift down into their collars. In 1971 two first-year students in Foss-Woodman decided, on one of the coldest nights of the year, to ascend the hill behind Runnals Union just to roll in the snow. Co-ed naked snowbathing, they might call it today. Their retreat was so hurried that Jack lost a shoe part way down the hill and ended up nursing a minor nip of frostbite while Jill survived unscathed.     Frank Apantaku '71, a Colby trustee and an eminent surgeon in Chicago, recalls leaping out a window in Woodman into snow so soft that he had to swim through the drift to find the door back into the building. That was in 1968--the first year the native of Lagos, Nigeria, ever saw snow. Apantaku admits he chose Colby from a college guidebook in part because he thought it would be warmer than New England colleges. He had looked for "Maine" in an atlas, he says, and ended up staring at a city at the southern tip of Florida.     "I'm not dyslexic," he said. "I'm still trying to explain how I could have made such an error. I honestly thought I was looking at the state of Maine." The punch line arrived in a fact sheet that came after he was accepted. "Lo and behold there was something about minus 20 degrees."     Apantaku's father, who was stronger in geography, told his son, "I think it is true. You're getting very close to the North Pole there in Maine. Come. To see what you're getting into, let's stick your hand in the freezer for awhile."     Students still immerse themselves in winter, even if no current ones would admit to leaping from windows or co-ed naked escapades. Leff had a story about wearing hip waders to rescue a sinking snowmobile from East Pond. "There were ten of us thigh-deep in ice water. I thought I was going to lose my legs. It was wonderful."     After missing last winter when he spent his junior year at the London School of Economics, Leff was eager to cross-country ski again. "The colder the better," he said. During his two previous Januarys here he would set out from campus with a friend just as the sun went down, intent on getting lost in the woods for an hour or two. "It was a daily event during Jan Plan. A ritual."     "I had no idea what I was getting into, coming from Mexico City. But I've told my brother all about it and he's applying early decision to Colby," Leff said.     Skating on Johnson Pond has been a tradition since the pond was built, though this year, because the pond is being restored, Physical Plant crews don't have to worry about putting out the warming hut or keeping the ice clean. "When we drained the pond we found hundreds of concrete blocks that students used for goals, and there were dozens of hockey pucks in the drain itself," said Dean of the College Earl Smith.     Sledders tend to favor either the hill in front of the Cotters' house (The Presidential Range, as some townspeople call it) or a run that ends up on the Lorimer Chapel lawn. Russ said there's an asymmetrical arrangement of trees on the chapel lawn because one of his roommates uprooted one of the planted saplings that blocked the sled run. (A few years ago dining services got wise and bought trays that won't slide, effectively ending the practice of "traying" down Colby hills.)     Not far from campus, members of the Mountaineering Club practice ice climbing at the Devil's Chair, a rocky precipice near the old Colby ski slope. "The rock is too rotten for serious climbing in the summer," said Linsay Cochran '97, one of the founders of the club, "but there's a lot of water that comes out and makes a great curtain of ice. I logged a lot of hours on there."      Chris Gates '99 has a passion for winter photography and that's how he got roped in (literally) to photographing club members there last year. "When it's really cold you have to keep your camera in your jacket so the batteries don't freeze, and then when you take it out the lens fogs up," he said. A fanatic alpine skier, Gates was budgeting more time for winter camping and ice climbing this year. He hoped to spend the night in a snow cave and to scale Maiden's Cliff in the Camden Hills. "You have to deal with winter here, so you might as well get into it," he said.   Kevin Landis '98, from Sacramento, Calif., transferred to Colby after a semester at UCLA. "I remember in January sitting in my apartment out there and it was 75 degrees outside. I said, 'This is crazy. There's no climate in California.' The first week I was here I took a shower and my hair froze solid on the way to the dining hall. I thought that was the coolest thing."