Why does ice become sticky the colder it gets? I noticed that ice becomes stickier the colder it gets. I am reminded of the fool who stuck his tongue to a cold galvanized steel pole and got stuck to it. I am guessing that the pole was so cold that the moisture on his tongue instantly became ice. Why does ice have this property? 
 A: It's only "sticky" when you stick it to something that was initially warmer than freezing.
Let's say you stick your finger against a (very cold) ice cube. Two things happen in sequence:


*

*The heat from your finger transfers into the ice and melts it slightly, forming a thin water layer.

*The heat dissipates further into the cube, and the water refreezes. When it refreezes it also freezes the surface of your finger. The ice crystals cross from the water into your skin pores, and form a lattice that includes some of your skin. This lattice makes your finger to "stick" to the ice cube.


Now if the cube is warmer, step 2 never happens, so the ice is never "sticky". In the case where you actually lick the ice cube (or metal pole), step 1 never needs to happen, the water that's there simply freezes.
A: It's really complex, and the answer from Shep is a bit imprecise.
Ice at temperatures just below freezing has the remarkable property of not being frozen on the surface. There is a extremely thin layer of liquid water on the surface. How thin? 70 nm at 272 K, but only 10 nm at 262 K. This water layer can act as a lubricant, but with less lubricant the friction is higher.
So, it's not the heat of your finger that causes the liquid layer. It's always there.
The second problem with Shep's answer is the idea of refreezing. It's unclear what he exactly means by that, but a heat wave is not like a wave in water. Heat will diffuse back. You don't get heat ripples.
The icy metal pole mentioned is quite effective in transferring away heat. Metals conduct quite well. The ice cube in comparison doesn't conduct well, and where molten the conductivity is even lower.
