This is a very effective way to conserve energy and survive on stored fat until warm weather returns. There are animals, though, that are active in winter. Some, like the pocket gopher, mountain vole, and pika, actually remain beneath the snow layer. The small open space between the snow and the ground is warmer than the surface and affords some protection from predators. Pikas assure an adequate food supply for themselves by storing stacks of dried grasses collected during the summer in their rocky dens.
Food storage is a strategy also adopted by red squirrels.
They store limber pine cones near rocks and fallen logs all summer long, and dig through the snow to find this food cache. It took thousands of years for this community of plants and animals adapted to the rigorous conditions at Craters of the Moon to become established. The formation of soil on the barren rock was the necessary first step in their colonization of the lava. Life Soil formation proceeds in different ways on cinder cones and lava flows. On cinder cones, wind, water, and changing temperatures break large cinders into smaller and smaller pieces.