Our research group made our annual pilgrimage to Mammoth Lakes, CA to kick off the beginning of the (academic) year. The evenings were filled with discussions on past, current, and future research and imbibing on delicious homemade food. The days were spent enjoying all the activities that the Eastern Sierras had to offer. The group hike this year was the Twenty Lakes Basin Loop Trail (though about half of us decided to only tackle the loop around Saddlebag Lake). But those that did the entire 10 mile route were rewarded with a snow cave unlike anything that I’ve ever seen. Quentin — our resident group photographer and videographer — created a wonderful video showing the epicness of the hike (the snow cave comes around 0:45).