As they shivered through the night, the four women talked about the warm baths they would take when they got off the mountain. They prayed and sang Girl Scout songs.

And at one point, as she worked hard to keep her spirits up, Marynell Matt launched into “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Singing, it turned out, was a key to staying calm through the course of what was undoubtedly one of the longest nights in Matt’s life.

Matt, her three companions and her golden retriever Gracie went missing during a snowshoeing trip near Snoqualmie Pass last week, triggering an almost 24-hour search and rescue operation that garnered newspaper headlines and TV reports.

Now in the comfort of her home on the north end of Vashon, Matt acknowledged it was a tough and sometimes frightening night. At the same time, she said, she and her companions were determined to stay positive and stay put — knowing both were critical to their survival.

“I don’t want to sound cavalier, because I was really scared,” Matt said. “But we kept checking in with each other, asking, ‘Do you have that sinking sense of doom?’ — and no one did.”

The ordeal started at noon on Sunday, when Matt, an avid outdoorswoman, arrived with three other women — one of whom was a good friend, another an acquaintance and another a person she had just met — at the Gold Creek SnoPark in Kittitas County.

Conditions were excellent, she said, and her group decided to go up the mountain on the main trail and then veer off-trail as they returned to the trailhead.

It was something Matt has done countless times while snowshoeing and something she said others routinely do as well.

“There were tons and tons of tracks going off the trail on Sunday,” she said. “That’s what people do.”

But as the afternoon wore on, Matt — best known on the Island as a talented gardener and the devoted mother of a young son — realized something was wrong.

“It was taking a long time to get down, and the sense was, we should be there by now,” Matt said.

Around 4 p.m., light was fading and the group had arrived at some flowing water that Matt said she and the rest of the women didn’t want to cross.

It was at this point that Matt suggested calling 911, and after waiting 10 minutes, that was what they did.

Matt quickly reached the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Department and Dep. Mark McBride, who became a

lifeline for the group through the long night and morning that was to follow.

“He stayed in contact with us from the beginning to the end,” Matt said. “He was such a top notch professional, always personable and always professional and always confident. He never faltered.”

Both Matt and one of her companions had fully charged cellphones. They had also packed essentials, including a compass, extra food and water, a headlamp, a whistle, as well as mylar blankets and a tarp, which they fashioned into the floor of a makeshift snow cave. They also had matches and flint but couldn’t get a fire started because the wood they found was too wet.

Matt said she initially thought she and her friends would be found quickly. They blew their whistle, watched for flares and listened for gunshots and sirens that McBride told them were being set off.

But no one in the group heard or saw anything, Matt said, and soon, heavy snow began to fall, eventually accumulating to seven inches overnight. The temperature sank considerably below freezing.

The emotional low point came around 1 a.m., when McBride phoned to say that the search teams were coming off the mountain and wouldn’t be able to return until the morning.

Matt said the group coped with the realization that they would be spending the night outdoors in different ways: She walked in a labyrinth pattern to stay warm, while others huddled together under the blankets. No one slept.

The group also sang songs, including John Lennon’s “So This is Christmas,” and talked about the things they were most looking forward to when the got off the mountain.

“For some of us, it was just the car, and for others, it was the hot tub or a hot toddy,” she said.

Throughout the long night, Matt also marveled at her dog Gracie.

“She was awesome,” Matt said. “I feel like she had a pulse on each one of us and was watching out for all of us.”

She also said she prayed, speaking directly to her deceased parents and to her late friend John Arum, an environmental lawyer and avid outdoorsman who died in a mountaineering accident in August.

“I said, ‘We’ve learned everything we need to learn, let us go now.’”

At one point, the group discussed whether they should follow the running water and try to make it out on their own — an option they decided was too risky.

In hindsight, it was a wise decision.

“It turned out we weren’t by a creek; we were in a drainage area, and there was a ton of water all over the place, and that made it really treacherous,” Matt said.

As dawn broke on the mountain, Matt got back in touch with McBride and eventually got his OK to leave the spot where they had camped for the night and move to a more open location. By 1 p.m., a rescue team on skies reached the women.

As it turned out, they had wandered nearly two miles off the trail, according to rescuer Kevin Huggett, who spoke to the press briefly after the incident.

“We weren’t just a little lost,” Matt said. “We were a lot lost, way beyond where I thought we were.”

Matt said she was impressed by the rescue effort and deeply appreciative, so much so that she has already agreed to volunteer as a “lost person” as part of Kittitas County search and rescue volunteer training.

“It was a tremendous, coordinated effort,” she said.

But as the rescuers brought the women to the trailhead, Matt was greeted by something she hadn’t expected — banks of television cameras and a gaggle of reporters.

“It felt like paparrazi,” Matt said.

And with the whirring cameras came another sinking realization for Matt — that her family and friends might have heard about her disappearance.

“I had no idea that anyone knew,” she said.

Luckily, Matt’s 4-year-old son, who spent Sunday and Monday with his father, never knew that Matt was missing until after she was found, but she did have 28 calls from friends and relatives waiting for her on her answering machine when she returned to Vashon.

“That kind of overwhelmed me with emotions,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to worry.”

Matt said that she’ll definitely snowshoe again, but she’s also spent time thinking about the experience.

She said that she assumes a personal GPS tracking device might have helped the group, but she also noted what the group did right once they realized they were lost.

“I think there can be a lot of false senses of security, and having skills and being prepared can go a long way,” she said. “That we called when we called and that we kept our wits and worked well as a team went a long way. I don’t feel like we attempted something beyond our level. We just got lost, and that can happen to anyone.”

And Matt offered some wisdom for people who might find themselves in a similar situation.

“Keep your wits about you and use all that stuff you learned in Girl Scouts,” she said. “And then when you get home and learn that people were praying for you and breathing for you …. that’s what gets me emotional. We’re not alone, we’re never alone. We all do need each other.”