This picturesque city has been named America's new outdoor sports capital after nature-loving Californians moved there in droves

The city generally thought of as an oasis of man-made amusement, over-the-top culinary and entertainment experiences has become a haven for nature explorers.

Known for its plethora of vices, the unassuming desert city has become a place where many are discovering its proximity to the beautiful outdoors. 

Las Vegas, Nevada has, in recent years, become home to an elite class of climbers who find the city to be more affordable, pleasant, and generally compatible with their specific ways of life than other 'nature-oriented' cities.

'People go to Denver because they say they want to be near the outdoors. But it’s at least an hour’s drive away from the real mountains,' Alex Honnold told the Los Angeles Times.

Honnold, 38, the world's best known mountain climber, largely due to the success of the award-winning documentary 'Free Solo,' said he thinks Vegas is 'better than any of the other cities in the country that have a reputation for being outdoorsy.'

The desert city thought of generally as an oasis of man-made amusement, has become a haven for nature explorers who have discovered its proximity to the outdoors

'In Vegas, you can live in the middle of suburbia and be 15 minutes from trailheads where you can be completely alone and feel like you’re gonna die,' he noted.

Other avid climbers agree with Honnold and have gravitated toward Vegas due to its under-the-radar geographic diversity, as well as its affordability and the solid infrastructure it provides for settling down and raising a family.

Just past the suburbs outside the famed and infamous Las Vegas strip, lie an incredible number of hiking and climbing routes through Red Rock canyon, which begins at about 3,000-feet elevation.

Even northern California's Yosemite can no longer compete with what Vegas has to offer in the minds of this community of world-class climbers.

'Yosemite is a world destination in the spring and fall. But in the summer, it’s way too hot and way too crowded,' Honnold said, adding that in the colder months it becomes 'too wintry.'

Others in Honnold's community, like five-time US national sport climbing champion Emily Harrington, 37, agree that Vegas provides something that other climbing destinations around the country cannot.

'Yosemite is just a hard place to exist,' she said, noting that pushing yourself mentally and physically all day just to return to a van can become exhausting and is hardly conducive to the time of life she has entered.

Harrington and her climber husband Adrian Ballinger recently welcomed a son, placing some urgency on their desire to be based out of somewhere decidedly livable.

They recently bought a house not far from where Honnold, his wife, and their two young children live. 

The El Dorado canyon near Vegas is another spot nature and history enthusiasts might jot down as a place to visit

Climbers take stock of the incredible view atop a Vegas mountaintop

Climber Alex Honnold looks over his shoulder on the approach to the Rainbow Wall in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area Monday, May 13, 2024 in Las Vegas

Nevada has long been an under-the-radar spot for nature lovers to visit

'I can go out, drive five minutes to the trailhead, climb big routes all day, and then come back to my house and my kid and put him to bed, and I don’t have to live in a van!' Harrington told the Times.

'It's just so nice,' she added, mentioning several of her favorite nearby restaurants. 

Jonathan Siegrist, another millennial climber, is also a major advocate for the Vegas lifestyle, but says it's been an uphill battle - so to speak - convincing his peers of the area's assets.

'This city still has a really bad reputation in the outdoor community,' he said - unlike, for instance, his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, where cost of living prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

'A lot of outdoor people would never stoop so low as to walk into a casino and enjoy themselves, or shop at a strip mall. That’s a huge contributing factor as to why Vegas has stayed under the radar.'

For the moment, that's something about Vegas Siegrist is enjoying.

More mainstream mountain towns, he says, are full of people conforming to a single aesthetic and ideological way of life.

But in Vegas, on days when he's not climbing, he has a chance to be 'a totally different version of myself.'