Hard, but essential, to find joy in 2025

Joshua Tree National Park never disappoints.

Recently, I was lucky to spend a week with friends and family there. Greeting us were countless Joshua trees and majestic scenery as far as the eye could see. All involved loved hiking and rock climbing in the cool winter temperatures.

Unfortunately, an upsetting event disrupted the positive desert vibes. On the morning of Feb. 17, I saw a crowd of 40 protesting the loss of park rangers’ jobs.

In a cost-cutting move, the federal government fired an estimated 1,000 National Park Service workers and 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees three days earlier.

The demonstrators objected not only to their lost positions but to the harm that the rangers’ absence will cause visitors and public lands like Joshua Tree. Although I support balancing the federal budget, I sympathized with the protesters and share their concerns.

While some Americans cheer such developments, I’m in the camp that finds the news hard to digest lately. So I was glad to learn that a feel-good event was coming to my climbing gym, Pacific Pipe in Oakland, on March 1 and 2.

At the 2025 Para Climbing National Championships, 140 climbers competed for personal satisfaction, individual achievement and the chance to join the national team. Twenty-seven of them won titles; among them were first-time competitor Mason Keough and repeat champions Melissa Ruiz and Dennis Connors.

For hours, I watched the climbers in awe. All of them participated at high levels despite physical handicaps including visual impairment, neurological disabilities and amputations.

As a climber myself, I felt a proud kinship with the competitors, though each of them had overcome adversity like I’ve never had to face. An audience of hundreds could not help but feel inspired.

But at the same time as the competition, Americans rallied in Yosemite and across the country at the nation’s 433 national park sites, which saw record visitation in 2024.

Protesters demanded that the government protect public land, despite the budget cutting efforts of President Trump, Elon Musk and the new Department of

Government Efficiency which threaten to do the opposite.

Faced with inadequate staffing in the peak summer season, Yosemite and other sites have postponed camping reservations. The forest service may have to shut down nearly 4,000 campsites in California alone.

The reduced workforce may not be able to carry out essential functions like cleaning the bathrooms, protecting endangered species and even search and rescue operations.

If you find this as distressing as I do, then you may be pleasantly surprised that a bipartisan bill to protect the outdoors passed into law this year.

President Biden signed the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act shortly before leaving office in January. The measure promotes safe climbing, access for disabled people and veterans and small businesses which operate on public land. Bipartisan consensus is still possible, or at least it was a few months ago.

Good luck finding such agreement among Americans of different ideologies today. Our partisan divide dwarfs the Grand Canyon. We’re unable to even agree upon the proper name for our nation’s tallest mountain, which Alaskans call Mount Denali.

It’s hard to bear the acrimony, and yet I feel guilty for trying to shut it out. I’d heal the national rift if I could, but since I can’t, I’m trying to at least preserve my mental health.

To that end, I entered The Great Ski Race with an old friend and two cousins on March 2. I’ve been cross country skiing since I was a kid, and competing in running nearly as long, but had never entered a ski race before.

This one covered 26 kilometers, or 16.1 miles, on a forest loop beside Lake Tahoe.

Matt Seline won the men’s race in 1 hour and 18 minutes. Quinn Lehmkuhl topped the women’s race in 1 hour and 26 minutes, improving by 13 minutes her winning time from two years before.

I took nearly three times as long and finished closer to the back of the pack than the front. But I loved trying something new, pushing myself, breathing the crisp air and feeling camaraderie with 450 other skiers. Cold beer and hot chili at the finish line didn’t hurt, either.

Finding joy may be difficult in 2025, but it’s essential that we try to do so. I suggest you look for some outdoors, where I’m finding mine, as usual.

Matt Johanson enjoys hiking, climbing, skiing and writing about the outdoors. His books include “Yosemite Epics,” and “Yosemite Adventures” and “California Summits.” You can find more of his writing at www.mattjohanson.com