High atop the jagged, frost-bitten peaks of the North American cordillera, a pint-sized mammal navigates a precarious existence that would prove fatal to almost any other endotherm. The American Pika (Ochotona princeps) is a master of the alpine extremophile niche, a lagomorph that has effectively traded the safety of deep burrows for the chaotic, boulder-strewn talus slopes that characterize the continent's highest elevations. Recent longitudinal studies suggest these small, round-eared dwellers are facing unprecedented physiological pressure as the seasonal windows they rely on for food cache maintenance begin to shift. Unlike their rabbit relatives, pikas do not hibernate. Instead, they remain active throughout the brutal winters of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, relying on a meticulously curated "haypile" of dried grasses and wildflowers. This behavior is a triumph of biological engineering; the pika must harvest enough vegetation during the fleeting, hi...