Let’s face it: it’s been a rough couple of years. With an ongoing pandemic and now the war in Ukraine, anxiety levels are understandably at an all-time high. We want to help, so we looked into some ways to lighten things up and boost your health by upping the fun in your life. Best of all, these scientifically proven techniques are easy.

1. Smile When You’re Learning Something New

If you’ve ever tried unsuccessfully to acquire a skill or become proficient in a sport, odds are you weren’t having fun. Cognitive studies on mood and emotion in learning reveal that, regardless of the activity, taking a lighthearted approach boosts focus and retention. When a lesson or an experience is fun, dopamine increases; as that neurotransmitter circulates in your brain, it improves your mood and enhances your capacity to tune in to big concepts and small details alike. There’s also reward involved: additional dopamine is released when you learn more. And educational games and physical activities engage more of the senses, which activates auditory, kinetic, and other sorts of learning to facilitate retention.

2. Make Playtime a Priority

Research suggests that playing like a kid can help adults live better lives. published in the European Journal of Humor Research showed that playful adults lived happier, more satisfying, and healthier lives. During the study, 255 adults were asked to share their interest level in playful activities, then assess the state of their current mental and physical health. Researchers explained that playfulness—broadly defined as the ability to derive amusement from a situation—is prevalent in mental activities like playing music or video games, and physical activities like sports or outdoor hobbies. The study’s results followed a trend: Adults with little or no interest in mental or physical activity scored low in life satisfaction and psychological wellness. Those with an appreciable interest in nonphysical playfulness scored high, and playful adults who were physically active scored the highest.

3. Why Laughing Matters

The more you laugh, the longer you’ll live, according to by a group of Norwegian behavioral scientists. The researchers looked at the influence of humor on the life spans of more than 53,000 people over a 15-year period. They found that those who had a meaningful amount of humor in their lives showed a lower risk of death from infection or heart disease. Why? Perhaps because humor can ­reduce stress-related hormones that suppress the immune system. A study published in 2020 by Stanford and University of Chicago scientists that focused on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder showed similar results. Researchers used nitrous oxide on three veterans in treatment, who self-reported quick relief from symptoms, a benefit that lasted up to a week.

4. Fuel Your Feel-Good Hormones

It’s well-known that high stress levels negatively influence biology, causing the release of the fight-or-flight hormone cortisol. With an imbalance of hormones, the body has trouble regulating mood, metabolism, and immune response. But when we have fun, done by scientists at Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea, the body releases the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, which leads to elevated mood and a healthier cell-proliferation process. Hormonal balance is crucial for our immune system’s strength and our ability to recover after strenuous athletic activity, as is cell growth, which helps the kidneys, lungs, and other organs regulate body functions. Meanwhile, some studies suggest that serotonin released by enjoyable activities could help promote neurogenesis, or cell growth in the brain.

5. Join the Crowd

For most people, communal fun is more appealing than individual fun in a variety of activities, including climbing, running, cycling, and team sports like soccer and basketball. by researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Arizona, 257 participants were asked to play a game in groups and then by themselves. Participants reported that social interaction, with a friend or a stranger, was more fun than solitary activity. The study showed that the more you connect with friends or make new ones, the more fun you have.

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Growing up, I was not a great swimmer. It took only a few lessons for me to realize that staying afloat was all I needed in life. But during the summer of 2014, when I was out in the Atlantic near Bethany Beach, Delaware, my lack of skills nearly cost me. I was swimming with friends when I got caught in a riptide—a strong ocean current that can quickly end badly for swimmers. As my friends made their way back to shore, I found that I couldn’t keep up. Before long a lifeguard came to my aid. At first I felt embarrassed, but I soon understood how fortunate I was: in nearby Ocean City, Maryland, three swimmers died from rip currents that summer, two within weeks of my swim.

After that trip, thinking about ocean swimming gave me anxiety. But while reading about local swimming spots in my new home city of San Diego, I learned that immersion in cold water can ameliorate stress and improve well-being. Advocates of the practice like extreme athlete Wim Hof link the mental benefit to the endorphin rush experienced upon exposure to cold. I considered how often anxiety derailed my workday concentration and energy; if a cold swim each morning could help me stay engaged and conquer my fear in the process, I was sold. I set out to hit the water before work for two weeks, hoping to see an improvement in my mental state.

It didn’t go well at first. While I consistently arrived at the beach around 7:30 A.M., I spent most of my time only hip-deep in the 62-degree water, willing myself to dive through the oncoming waves. It took two days before I finally swam, breaststroking weakly for three minutes near a lineup of surfers wearing warm, comfortable wetsuits.

The effects, though, were immediate. The initial shock of cold water heightened my senses, and that lasted into the workday. I found myself breezing through daily meetings and fixating far less on stressful deadlines. Email messages that normally took 30 minutes or more to draft were quickly dispatched. I even read back issues of this magazine, partly for research purposes but also to see whether anyone had previously reported on what felt like my amazing work-productivity hack. (They hadn’t.)

In the end, I still had to bribe myself into the ocean with the promised glow of a post-swim workday. Yet the satisfaction of regaining control of my time and boosting my confidence in the water helped me see that many of the daily tasks that cause me angst (writing, researching, email) also make me feel competent and capable when they’re accomplished—that it’s actually better to dive in than to delay with trepidation. With winter approaching, I’ll be hanging up my swimsuit soon, but I plan to take a few dips in the spring while the water’s still cold, chasing that mix of fear and exhilaration.

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It was a hot, crowded summer day at Inks Lake State Park, an hour outside Austin, Texas. Campsites were bustling with families and groups of friends grilling, playing, and swimming in the nearby reservoir. For many it was the start of a relaxing weekend.

, meanwhile, stood anxiously at the park entrance, recording equipment in hand, wondering if all her preparation would pay off. It would be her first time sleeping outdoors, and with three days and two nights ahead of her, there was plenty to worry about: wild-animal attacks, the spiders living in the bathrooms, and an unfortunately timed yeast infection. Still, she made her way to her campsite, determined to carry out her mission.

The camping trip was the culmination of three years of work for Le, an��Austin-based podcaster, comedian, and self-professed fan of the indoors, and would serve as the season finale of her ten-episode podcast��, in which she confronts her aversion to outdoor spaces. As Le puts it, “FOGO is a nature show with the most reluctant host ever.”

Released this summer on , FOGO follows Le’s preparation for the camping trip from day one, bringing in perspectives from a range of experts along the way. In one episode, a former wildland firefighter and nature educator teaches her survival skills; in another, she attends a therapy session to overcome her outdoor-related fears and hang-ups. Le approaches the material with a mix of humor, awkwardness, and sincerity, making her an approachable guide for fellow beginners.

For Le, the show allowed her to redress the rocky relationship with the outdoors that she developed as a kid growing up in Dallas. As a second-generation Vietnamese American living in a big city, Le didn’t have many natural spaces nearby, and she didn’t see many people who looked like her going hiking or camping. “If I were to tell my parents, ‘Hey, I’m going to go camping for funsies,’ they’d be like, ‘What? Why?’” she says. “They would literally not understand what it was I was about to go do.”

After building a career in creative fields—writing, poetry, and eventually stand-up comedy—she came to podcasting, first as a fan. “I discovered podcasts when I became a mom, while I was breastfeeding my first child,” she says.��“I ended up loving the medium so much that I had a running list of like 200 podcast ideas.”

Of those, Le settled on one that had urgency: finding a way to enjoy the great outdoors before it was too late. “It’s��not that I want to go outside—I just don’t want to miss out before I die,” she says in the show’s first episode, citing climate change and other threats to the outdoors as her motivation. “My FOMO is in direct conflict with my FOGO…. It feels overwhelming to figure it all out from zero, but if I don’t go now, I might never get the chance.”

At a Spotify accelerator camp for aspiring podcasters who are women of color, she came up with a plan: she would spend six months recording her journey from an outdoors skeptic to, well, a more knowledgeable outdoors skeptic. A Kickstarter campaign followed soon after, in 2018, which raised just enough money for��sound equipment and camping gear.

Le’s comedy is an effective antidote to the self-seriousness she’s noticed in outdoor culture: “You all are a humorless lot,” she tells me. Her beginner’s perspective allows her to poke fun at the outdoor world from a fresh point of view. “Most of the time, I’m not trying to be funny,” she says. “Sometimes it makes you laugh, because you’re uncomfortable or maybe because you recognize something true and that’s your response.” Her jokes about outdoorsy stereotypes entertain and disarm listeners, but there’s also a greater meaning behind them. “I think humor is definitely a tool that marginalized people use to live the joyful lives that we’re owed, and to process the experience of being marginalized,” she says.

Her comedic style is also influenced by her favorite nature shows on cable TV. “I watch almost all the nature shows out there,” she says. “All the hoity-toity ones, the weird ones like Naked and Afraid, I’m obsessed.” In one episode, for instance, a guest host narrates Le’s shopping trip to find camping supplies; the voice-over is excessively dramatic, and the host describes Le stuck in a sleeping bag, like a bear in a trap.

FOGO premiered in May. It was among Spotify’s top 50 most popular podcasts in its first week and earned Le an inadvertent role as a kind of educator in outdoor media. Not only did non-outdoorsy listeners relate to her experiences, but hikers, campers, and other outdoor enthusiasts listened to hear a different perspective. “I did not make the show for outdoor people,” she says, “but I am fascinated that it’s��resonating with outdoor people.”

Since completing her camping trip (spoiler alert: she makes it out alive!), Le has considered a few ideas for a second season, but she isn’t in a particular rush. Meanwhile, she’s already achieved one of her main goals for the podcast. “One of the explicit reasons I wanted to make a show that was from my perspective, but not for the consumption of my pain, is that so much of media is made for the white gaze, and I’ve just thought there’s just enough of it,” she says. “I want to be the nature-show host that a person rich with intersectional identities can trust.”

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When Quinn Brett rides her adaptive hand bike, she’s always looking up—and not just because of the prone position the saddle keeps her in. Brett’s whole athletic career has been defined by the search for new ways to push her limits. Case in point: she just completed the roughly 2,400-mile cross-country mountain bike race in 25 days. She’s the first documented racer to finish the race on an adaptive hand bike.

The annual bikepacking race takes on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which spans from Jasper, Canada, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, along the Rocky Mountains. It’s one of the longest established mountain-bike races in the world. This year, due to border closings, racers skipped the Canadian section and started in Eureka, Montana, finishing roughly 2,450 miles later at the Mexican/United States border.

Brett’s path to the Tour Divide is far from average. Four years ago, she was a dominant big-wall climber. A 100-foot fall during a speed ascent of the Nose in October 2017 left her paralyzed from the waist down. While she recovered in the hospital, a friend and cyclist bought her a hand bike. It didn’t take long for her ambitions to kick in. “I just love moving across the earth,” she says. “I don’t want to let anything stop me, I’m just like ‘I need to move’.” She quickly began seeking out cycling opportunities near her home base in Estes Park, Colorado.

On the second anniversary of her fall, Brett spent four days with friends camping and riding along the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park. “After that I was like, ‘I think I could do White Rim in a day’,” she says. In March, she did just that. “It gave me the energy and excitement to do the Tour Divide.”

It would be an ambitious undertaking. The trail’s overall length and 149,664 feet of vertical gain push riders who aim to finish at any pace. The fastest riders typically finish in 14 or 15 days (the first-place title in 2021 went to Jay Petervary, who completed the route in 14 days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes). But Brett would face other challenges. She rode supported, with cyclist Joe Foster. Finishing the route in 25 days meant riding an average of 100 miles a day, at roughly 11 miles per hour.

Her ride of choice: the , a three-wheeled hand bike. The bomber keeps Brett in a kneeling stance, with her chest lying on the saddle, while her arms do both the pedaling and the steering. This puts her body weight over the crank set for added power, but can add strain on a lengthy ride. “My chest and neck were sore all the time,” Brett said. “The saddle soreness was a lot, and paired with the workout on my arms and shoulders, I was in a lot of pain.”

Crucially, the Bomber has a built-in mid-drive motor (otherwise, any ride on the hand bike is slow and tiresome). Without the motor, Brett says she couldn’t move in the outdoors the way she wanted. “Five years ago this wouldn’t have been possible,” she says.” For example: adaptive bike companies have figured out how to tweak the motor’s output to account for the difference in power made from pedaling with your arms instead of your legs.

She tends to keep to the lowest of the five motor settings, which was just enough for her to reach a three to six mile-per-hour pace (similar to brisk hiking) off road, and roughly 13 to 17 miles per hour on flat roads. “I wanted to really feel like I was getting a workout on steep hills and things like that,” she says. She got what she asked for, thanks to a few days of rain, which yielded muddy conditions in the backcountry, coupled with a record-breaking June heatwave.

But those struggles went hand in hand with something Brett loves: the ability to spend a long time in the wilderness, out of a wheelchair.

She views her Tour Divide finish as more than just a personal achievement. To her, it’s proof that the backcountry can still be accessible to people with disabilities. Brett paired her race with a fundraiser with the , a nonprofit dedicated to providing recreational opportunities for people with spinal cord injuries. The goal: raise money to purchase adaptive bikes and other equipment to be kept at or near national park sites. “It’s hard as a person with a disability to travel with these big bikes,” says Brett. “To have them at the gateway towns of these national parks where people can rent them and then use them is such a clear way to improve access.”

Of course, with the Tour Divide done, Brett isn’t slowing down. “When we finished out the route I was like, ‘too bad there’s this wall here, I want to keep going and do the Baja Divide!’,” she says. For now, her immediate hope is to finish the roughly 300 remaining miles of the Tour Divide route, once restrictions are lifted. “We were talking about making that ride more of an adaptive cyclist event,” she said. “Invite people in the community and get a group ride going… there are definitely lots more biking adventures I want to do.”

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As summer gets into full swing, cyclists are embracing the return of bike events. “People are clearly so excited to be outside together and doing things again,” says Ben Delaney, the cycling group editorial director for ���ϳԹ��� Inc.. “The energy to participate in bike events this year seems like a combination of pent-up frustration, eagerness to get out and do something, and the relief of being out there.”

Whether you’re looking for a chance to test your fitness or reconnect with the cycling community, jump back into in-person group riding with these five upcoming events.

Richmond, Vermont

has a quirky, welcoming atmosphere, bringing together riders of all abilities into a race full of fun, food, and beer. There are two course options: a 45-mile route with 3,500 feet of elevation gain and an 85-mile route with 8,000 feet of climbing, both of which follow mostly dirt roads through Vermont’s Green Mountain range. Post-finish, riders can celebrate with local IPAs and classic maple creemees. A random selection lottery for entry was held in January for more than 800 spots, but if you’re aiming to join in 2022, registration for the lottery opens November 1 .

Red River, New Mexico

The newest addition to ’s roster gives riders a chance to experience northern New Mexico. Starting from the town of Red River, the 85- and 100-mile courses take cyclists through small mountain towns and along a scenic byway in the Sangre de Cristo Range. The ride highlights the regional culture in this unique part of the Southwest: live music acts dot the course, and local restaurants and breweries provide support for riders. More information on fees and registration details can be found .

Grand Junction, Colorado

This year’s Tour of the Moon event, which follows a 41-mile road loop from Grand Junction to Fruita and back again, is a modern take on a classic event: the route was first raced as a stage in the 1980 Coors International Bike Classic events. It weaves through��Colorado National Monument, an otherworldly high-desert landscape dotted with towering sandstone formations. Registration is available through , and the popular 2,200-rider event routinely sells out—so book early. Sign on before July 13 for a 10 percent discount.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Utah’s Five Canyons Bike Challenge starts in Salt Lake City and takes riders through scenic canyons in the Wasatch, climbing more than 14,000 feet in 116 miles. Those 14,000 feet don’t come easy: three of the climbs are sustained efforts of 5,000-plus feet, and the remaining two clock in between 1,500 and 3,000 feet. Your reward? Stunning views of the Wasatch Front. here.

Fincastle, Virginia

This Gran Fondo in early October is perfectly timed to watch the lush hills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Parkway turn red and gold. The ride, a new addition to the Gran Fondo National Series, offers three road options that take you through historical villages and winding river crossings and up to a mountain summit. Choose between the 33-mile Valley Ride, the 45-mile River Ride, and the 75-mile Mountain Ride. by October 4 to save 10 percent on your entry fee.

Roll Massif and BikeReg are part of ���ϳԹ��� Inc., the same company that owns ���ϳԹ��� magazine and ���ϳԹ��� Online. If you join the ���ϳԹ���+ membership program, you’ll gain unlimited access to all of our stories, along with deep discounts on bike events and more. Learn more about ���ϳԹ���+ .

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On April 10, 2021, Josh Ourada, a 31-year-old climber from the��San Francisco Bay Area, fell while free-soloing the Nutcracker, a straightforward, five-pitch route in Yosemite��he had climbed—both on rope and free solo—before. He confidently sent the first three pitches, but on the fourth, he slipped, falling nearly 200 feet to a rock ledge. He was gravely injured��but survived.

Ourada, a former Marine who has been climbing for a decade, was primarily a boulderer until about two years ago, when he shifted his focus to trad climbing and big walls. Around the same time,��he started to experiment with free soloing, which he considers a meditative practice. On this trip to Yosemite, he intended to spend his time free-climbing bigger, more challenging routes than he had before, with some solos in between.

Ourada told ���ܳٲ��������the story of his accident while recovering in the hospital. Here’s what happened, in his own words.

That morning, I’d set out to meet up with some friends for a chill day of cragging. We had been together in the park for three weeks, and the attitude was casual.��We usually made spur-of-the-moment plans,��unless we had a big objective for the day. Two days prior, I had climbed Lurking Fear on El Capitan, so I was still in recovery mode. I slept in and got a later start, and by the time I drove into the park, the parking��lot at the Church Bowl—a popular picnic area where the rest of my party was making breakfast—was full. Instead of waiting around for a spot to open up, I thought about what I could reasonably climb on my own. That’s when I settled on heading out to the Nutcracker, a five-pitch 5.8 on the Manure Pile Buttress, a granite crag in the park with moderate routes.

I let my friends at the Church Bowl know my rough plan, and went off to climb. Early spring is prime climbing season in Yosemite—a good time to beat crowds and get on the walls before the temperatures get too high—and the weather that day was nice, reaching up in the seventies. So, predictably, there were quite a few climbing parties at the Buttress. There were two parties of two already climbing and nearing a ledge at the top of the second pitch of the Nutcracker. To kill time while I waited for the Nutcracker to open up, I decided to wander and check out other routes. All the other routes that would have been reasonable free solos were occupied, so I waited until I could climb my first choice.

I was starting to get a little antsy, and with all the other routes full, I decided to ask some of the climbers on the wall if I could climb behind them rather than wait for them to top out. I knew I’d quickly meet them on that ledge since I didn’t have to do any belaying or waiting for partners. Hindsight is 20/20 of course: I was definitely making decisions out of impatience.

To me��it felt like a pretty normal climb, even with the groups on the wall, so I had no reason to be nervous while ascending. I pretty quickly got up to where a climber was on a larger ledge where you can stop and stand. I spoke with the belayer and asked if I could keep climbing with them, and they gave me the OK, so after a quick rest,��I jumped back on the wall.

I was just past the top of the third pitch, and there were three climbers on the wall ahead of me and the belayer still on the ledge below me—that was something I was aware of, but since things were going smoothly and they were friendly, I wasn’t��concerned about being so close to them.

Before long��I was halfway up the fourth pitch, at the crux of the route—a mantle move that is the most technically challenging section of the whole climb—so I was taking decent care in how I climbed in that moment, moving slower and more intentionally. The last thing I remember is slipping. I’m not sure whether it was my hand or foot. I can’t remember the exact movement before the fall.

The fall, however, I remember well.��I was plummeting��feetfirst with my back toward��the rock. The route isn’t quite vertical, so I wasn’t free-falling. I was digging my heels into the rock as I fell, and my hands were on the wall behind me, searching for anything I could grab to catch myself or even just slow down. At that moment, it was all fear running through me.

Below, I could see the person on the ledge. I was falling right toward��them. I remember thinking, OK, I need to find a spot to fall so that hopefully I don’t hurt anyone.��I have a lot of guilt about how my accident put those climbers in harm’s way. It was my first thought once I realized where I was falling. I was also aware that I needed to try and land in a way that protected me from injury to whatever degree I could, and also to ensure that I stopped at the ledge instead of falling all the way to the ground.

After falling somewhere between 150 and 200 feet, and thankfully avoiding the belayer below me,��I landed in a seated position on the ledge between the second and third pitches, next to him.

At that point after landing, I can only remember things in bits and pieces, and the time frame is a bit unclear. I was battling a lot of pain. Of my many injuries, the biggest was a collapsed lung, which made it very challenging to breathe. The belayer called Yosemite Search and Rescue for help, and looked out for me while we waited. He kept me out of shock and tried to distract me from the pain. I asked him to put on music and eventually to play a television show I had downloaded on my phone while waiting, all to make sure I didn’t hyperventilate or pass out.

It took about two hours before the YOSAR team arrived. It was a huge relief to see them. After getting looked over medically, the rescue team had to figure out how to best take me down from the wall, which was tricky—they first wanted to lower me to the ground with ropes, but decided that it was too risky with my injuries. Using a helicopter with a stretcher attached, they picked me up from the ledge and flew me to nearby El Capitan Meadow, where they planned to transfer me to a larger helicopter that could transport me to a hospital in Fresno.

From there��my memories are pretty hazy—I asked for pain medication once on board, which might have been the extent of my treatment at that moment. I don’t remember anything between that and waking up from surgery at Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center.

I spent 37 days there. I had fractured my right heel so badly it actually disintegrated in parts. My left heel had a wound that needed 20 stitches. I fractured the left side of my pelvis, as well as��my spine��in several places—a severe crushing in my L1 vertebra��and a handful of smaller fractures in other vertebrae. I fractured my sternum, broke some ribs, collapsed my right lung, and broke my left thumb. I’ve had two surgeries—a spinal fusion and one to put pins in my hands and feet—and done extensive rehabilitation for muscle recovery.

Due to the spinal-cord injury, I can’t feel or move anything from my ankles down. There’s a decent chance that will never change, meaning I’ll have paralyzed feet for the rest of my life. This entire experience was traumatic, but the thought of permanent paralysis is by far the hardest part to get my head around. The rest of my injuries will��hopefully��heal. I know that things could have been much worse.

This accident changed my entire life. I had planned to spend the next month training to climb the��Nose on El Cap. On an emotional level, I’m going to be processing this event for a long time. The feelings are still really raw—regret, naturally, comes to the forefront. I regret putting other climbers at risk, and I regret the impatience I felt.

My life��lately��has revolved around climbing��and being active outdoors. I’m struggling to understand what��it’s��going to look like now. But I don’t think this has changed my perspective on—or love for—climbing. I don’t look at free soloing the same way anymore on a personal level.��I’ll watch videos of free soloers and just feel uneasy thinking about my own experience. But I still don’t think of climbing as reckless or unnecessarily risky.

Now I’m discharged and heading to stay with my dad in Burwell, Nebraska, as I continue to recover. I’m taking stock of what I can do now��and trying to be as independent as I can. I’ll do my best to live a somewhat normal life, and I’m holding out hope that I’ll climb again. But for now, I’m slowing down on those kinds of plans��and focusing on how lucky I am—and how I want to move forward.

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On Friday, April 9, climbing guide Darrin Reay and a few friends went to the remote Sunshine Wall Slabs north of Utah’s Arches National Park for a weekend of climbing. When they arrived, they came across three newly bolted sport routes.��

Reay started up one of the new lines, an easy 5.3. About 30 feet off the ground, though, he came face to face with the image of a warrior holding a spear etched into the agate. Reay realized he was climbing through an entire 20-by-30-foot��panel of a few dozen Native petroglyphs.

“The route went straight through the whole thing,” Reay told ���ϳԹ���. After downclimbing and determining that the two nearby routes were also bolted through the petroglyph panel, Reay and his friends spent the weekend removing the bolts and documenting the damage.

“I thought about leaving them up for the sake of reporting them,” Reay told friend and climber Stewart Green, who about the incident on Facebook. “But I just couldn’t leave them up. It was my duty.” The petroglyphs, Green thought, appeared to be from the Fremont people, a pre-Columbian Native American culture that inhabited Utah and parts of surrounding states between 2,000 and 700 years ago. It’s unclear whether or not Green is correct, but similar petroglyphs attributed to the Fremont people have been documented in other areas nearby.��

It didn’t take long to figure out the bolts’ origin. Reay and his friends��found the routes posted on , a user-generated database of climbing routes, and traced the incident back to Richard Gilbert, a climber from Colorado Springs, Colorado.��

Gilbert, a veteran of the Marines and a 15-year climber, has since come out publicly with an apology and a description of his actions, which he insists is “no excuse for the damage done.”��

According to Gilbert, in late March he explored the unbolted wall in the Sunshine Slabs area and mistook a number of petroglyphs for graffiti, attributing what he assumed was��vandalism to the wall’s proximity to a��public campground. He��decided it would be safe to develop routes up the wall.��Later he��added information about the new routes to Mountain Project, mentioning what he interpreted as graffiti in the description. (Those routes were eventually removed by an administrator to discourage climbing in the area.) It only took a few weeks for his mistake to catch the attention of the website’s dedicated community of climbers. Outrage quickly followed.

Gilbert’s story unfolded largely through conversations on Mountain Project’s forums, where he says he first realized his error. “On Sunday night, I saw a post on my route [at Sunshine Slabs] and it said, ‘Hey, this is not graffiti, these are petroglyphs.’ I was like, Oh my gosh, I completely messed this up, I’m going to fix it right now,” he said.��He changed��the route��descriptions��on Mountain Project to steer climbers away from the area, drove��back to the wall to fill in the bolt holes, and left��a sign to draw attention to the petroglyphs.

“It’s wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. It’s just poor education on my part, and I do take full responsibility,” Gilbert says.

He returned to the area on Monday, April 12, and met with authorities from the Moab Bureau of Land Management to report the incident in person. “I told him this was my mistake, and asked what do I have to do to make sure other people aren’t paying for my mistake,” he said. The BLM office��opened an investigation after the��meeting and previous calls to report the incident, Gilbert said. (The BLM office did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.) According to , rock art like this is federally protected, and damaging acts can lead to felony and/or misdemeanor charges, with penalties that can include��up to a ten-year prison sentence and $100,000 in fines.

Meanwhile, conversations online about the incident turned to death threats against Gilbert and expressed anger over his actions, including many public posts on Mountain Project’s forums and direct messages and phone calls to him.

Green posted about the incident on Facebook this week, advocating for more awareness in the climbing community around cultural resources and Leave No Trace policies. “The fact is that we just can’t do whatever we want as climbers anymore,” he wrote, “unlike the Wild West days when I was a young climber and anything went.”

Similar situations have played out in popular climbing areas across the United States, including , , and , where routes have been removed and areas near��rock-art sites have been closed.

Along with the apology both online and in an , Gilbert has acknowledged the work required to not only repair the physical damage��but also the ties with Native communities after the damage. “I’m not the victim here,” he said. “I made a mistake, and I’ll pay for my mistake, but I think it’s also important to let the Native individuals have a voice and be heard now.”��

Gilbert, Reay, and Green each expressed the importance this incident has had in teaching climbers the history of the sites they climb on��and the need to prevent these problems in the future. “I want this to educate people on the outdoors as much as possible,” Reay said. “It’s been a passion of mine for a long time, and I don’t want to see these places and our access to public lands jeopardized because of a few people’s actions.”

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