It was cold.
It was very cold.
We knew it would be cold.
We didn’t know it would be that cold.

The girls were dressed in nice school clothes to start with, but I brought along multiple changes of clothes and shoes, as well as a big, warm blanket in case the girls got chilly while they were standing around. Unfortunately, when we got to our first stop, I didn’t think we’d be gone very long, so I left everything in the car as we set off on foot and started climbing.

Big mistake…because when we got to the top, the location was so nice we ended up staying for quite a while and froze our tookuses (or should that be “tooki”?) off in the process. With their practical winter clothes packed snugly in the car, the girls gamely navigated the snow field in their school shoes, occasionally breaking through the frozen top layer and disappearing up to their thigh in the snow.

Fortunately, Wynona‘s husband had come along as our Sherpa guide and had packed a quilt and a Thermos full of hot chocolate up the mountain. So, after a while, more out of necessity than anything else, she wrapped the girls up in the quilt and gave them some hot chocolate to try to warm them up.

(The photo above is Emma finishing off the last of the hot chocolate and looking quite pleased with herself…and Zoë looking a little less pleased.)

Apparently, the quilt was almost an afterthought, but it saved the day. And just as we were heading back to the car, the sun broke through the clouds and Wynona asked the girls to stop one last time so she could take a few final pictures…and I am so glad she did.

We were near the top of Emigration Canyon, where Brigham Young famously looked out over the Salt Lake Valley and proclaimed, “This is the right place,” but I’ll bet you even he didn’t have lighting that dramatic.

Just look at those faces. Hypothermia has never looked so cute!