You can’t tell from the photo, but your favorite photographer faced enormous peril on this Arctic morning. Waking up well before dawn to shoot the Grand Canyon at sunrise, I piled on every article of clothing available (including two pairs of socks and some long underwear that was not quite long enough), cleared a couple inches of ice and snow from the car, and headed out to bag my daily limit of award-winning images. It was cold, obviously, but I was still warm from the hotel room and the car’s heater kicked in after a few minutes, so I didn’t have a full appreciation for what I was getting myself into.

The morning was clear and breezy. The walk from my car to the Canyon’s edge was skating-rink icy. Once in place at a location I’d selected the previous day, I set up the tripod, mounted the camera, and waited in the dark. And waited. It takes a long time for the sun to rise high enough to light the canyon walls. No problem. I’ll just work on some frostbite. My beloved Nikon D700 was freezing, too. When I tried a test shot, the camera just blinked, displayed cryptic codes, and refused respond to my commands. After warming the batteries and camera under my coat, I was able to restore some functionality to the camera. (Not so much to my hands and feet, though.)

When I returned to the hotel, everyone was waking up, getting ready for breakfast. I sat and thawed. The TV reported a current temperature of 3 degrees F (-16 C). Before the sun rose, it certainly would have been below zero. Which makes it the coldest day I’ve ever experienced. In all, I spent about two-and-a-half painful hours shooting photos that morning. I hoped the results would justify the agony. What you see here is the best image I got. As they say, “Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.”