Sports
Why some of California's most outdoorsy people are moving to…Las Vegas?
For many, the lure of Las Vegas is the near complete immersion in a man-made world.
Visitors bury themselves deep inside temperature-controlled casinos, surrounded by artificial lights and sounds, with no windows or even clocks to remind them that the outside world still exists.
It’s one of the indoors-iest places on the planet.
But just outside the city, about 20 minutes from the bachelor parties and slot machines, a growing number of elite outdoor athletes are buying homes, starting families and declaring Las Vegas the adventure sports capital of the United States.
Alex Honnold, right, and climbing partner Joey Latina pause on the approach to the Rainbow Wall in Red Rock Canyon just outside Las Vegas.
“It just has unparalleled access to the outdoors,” gushed Alex Honnold, the world’s most famous rock climber and subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Free Solo,” about his breathtaking 2017 ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan, a nearly vertical granite wall that rises 3,000 feet above the valley floor.
It was first climbed in 1958 by a team who took 18 months searching for tiny protrusions and cracks to use as holds and driving heavy metal spikes into the rock where no natural holds existed. Honnold shocked the climbing world by using only his hands and feet — no safety equipment of any kind — and completing the ascent in just under four hours, a new speed record for the route.
In early May, as light from the rising desert sun seemed to set fire to the towering cliffs of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area just west of Las Vegas, Honnold pulled up in his electric truck ready to sprint up another sheer rock face. This one, known as the Rainbow Wall, rose about 1,000 feet above the desert floor.
Honnold, 38, who is of medium height and build and graying slightly at the temples, was dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. At first glance, there was little to set him apart from a dozen or so other hikers and climbers lined up to enter the park at 6 a.m.
But then he tossed a small pack over his shoulder and started moving, eager to cover several miles of brush and boulder-strewn landscape between him and the base of the climb before the day got too hot. His small entourage, which included a climbing partner and two Times journalists, struggled to keep up.
Climber Shaina Savoy ascends a limestone wall at Robbers Roost in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area near Las Vegas.
“Honestly, I would say Las Vegas is better than any of the other cities in the country that have a reputation for being outdoorsy,” Honnold said. “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.”
“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 said as two of his companions hunched over and gasped for breath.
What sets Vegas apart is the unexpected geographic diversity, making world-class climbing easily accessible year-round. In the winter, there are the endless routes in Red Rock, the canyon that begins just beyond the suburbs. Its sandstone walls start at about 3,000-feet elevation, which means they’re low enough to remain warm and pleasant even in December and January.
When spring and summer roll around, and the valley becomes a furnace, 12,000-foot Mt. Charleston is less than an hour’s drive away and the upper reaches can be 30 degrees cooler. There, towering limestone walls offer some of the toughest technical climbs in the world, and there are enough routes to keep a professional climber busy for a lifetime, Honnold said.
Even Yosemite, long regarded as Mecca for rock climbers from all corners of the globe, where Honnold and so many other professionals made their reputations, can’t match that.
The Las Vegas Strip viewed from Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area about 20 miles west of the city.
“Yosemite is a world destination in the spring and fall,” Honnold said. “But in the summer, it’s way too hot and way too crowded.” And in the winter, at 4,000 feet and directly exposed to Pacific storms, “it’s too wintry.”
And even when the weather is good, day-to-day life for climbers in Yosemite looks more romantic in old documentary films, and on Instagram, than it is in real life. Routes on its biggest and most famous walls, El Capitan and Half Dome, were pioneered by mostly unemployed self-proclaimed “dirtbag” climbers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who built a fierce and defiant counterculture in the nearby campgrounds.
Among them was Yvon Chouinard, a tinkerer whose small climbing gear business grew into the billion-dollar retailer Patagonia, but who spent years living hand to mouth with fellow climbers in tents and out of their cars. He has told more than one interviewer that, at times during his early climbing days, he was so broke he subsisted on canned cat food because, “it was better than dog food.”
That underlying ethos had mellowed a bit, but still existed when Honnold first drove the family minivan down from Sacramento in the early 2000s. He was still living in a van in 2017 when he made the career-defining climb of El Capitan.
But ask anyone who has done it for long and they’ll tell you, van life gets old, even in a place as beautiful as Yosemite.
Emily Harrington says climbers of her generation are looking to buy homes and settle down. She and her husband recently had a son, Aaro, adding urgency to their quest.
Hot showers. Good climbing. Great food. Climber Emily Harrington’s joy and relief are palpable as she lists the upsides of moving to the Las Vegas suburbs with her husband and son.
Emily Harrington, a five-time U.S. national champion in sport climbing and one of Honnold’s good friends, knows it all too well.
“Yosemite is just a hard place to exist,” she said. You spend all day pushing yourself to mental and physical exhaustion on the climbing walls, but there’s no rest when you come down. You have to find a place to camp, or park the van, or drive the van on long, crowded, windy roads to find a place outside the park. And even when you find a place, you’re still stuck in a van.
“It’s quite stressful,” Harrington said.
At 37, Harrington says climbers of her generation are looking to settle down. She and her husband, fellow climber Adrian Ballinger, recently had a son, which added real urgency to their quest.
That’s why they bought a place in Vegas not far from Honnold, his wife and their two young kids.
Harrington’s joy and relief are palpable as she lists the upsides of the new arrangement. “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!”
Hot showers. Soft beds. Great food. She rattled off about half a dozen of her favorite restaurants that are only a few minutes away. “It’s just so nice,” she said.
Jonathan Siegrist, 38, who is regarded as one of the world’s greatest technical climbers, couldn’t agree more.
While Honnold was battling the Rainbow Wall and nearly 90 degree heat in Red Rock last week, Siegrist and his wife, Shaina Savoy, huddled in puffy jackets between pitches on the cool limestone of nearby Mt. Charleston.
Jonathan Siegrist tackles Robbers Roost, a world-class rock-climbing destination in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area.
Jonathan Siegrist wears belay glasses, which give climbers a 90-degree view without craning their neck, during a climb at Robbers Roost.
Siegrist is unassuming when you first meet him: 5-foot-6, a firm handshake, a friendly smile. But then he pulls off his warm outer layer and starts climbing. Supporting his entire body with just his fingertips and the points of his toes on microscopic holds, he ascends the wall in precise choreographed movements, his progress as fluid and inevitable as flowing lava.
Despite the intense effort, which would leave most people gasping and single-minded, Siegrist had the aerobic and mental capacity to carry on a normal conversation.
He lived in his truck, off and on, for seven years. He settled down in Vegas because the climbing is better than anywhere else in the country and because the cost of living is much more reasonable than trendier climbing spots like his hometown of Boulder, Colo.
Even so, he struggles to convince young climbers, who are still trying to make names for themselves, that Vegas is the place to be.
“This city still has a really bad reputation in the outdoor community,” he said. “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,” he said. “That’s a huge contributing factor as to why Vegas has stayed under the radar.”
After living in his truck for years, Jonathan Siegrist said he settled in Las Vegas because the climbing is great and the cost of living more reasonable than in many trendy mountain towns.
But it’s actually one of the perks, he said.
Fashionable mountain towns are full of people trying to fit in, Siegrist said, to conform to a pretty strict outdoorsy aesthetic. They tend to look, dress and think the same way.
Freedom from that is one of the things he loves about Vegas.
“I’m not just talking about racial diversity. I’m talking about economic diversity, diversity of ideas and diversity of interests,” he said. On rest days, when he’s not climbing, “I can be a totally different version of myself.”
The difference can show in something as simple as walking his dogs off leash. If he tries that in Boulder, where his parents still live, “I’ll get yelled at by, like, six people in the first 30 seconds, even though the dogs are really obedient,” he said.
In Vegas, “nobody gives a s— what your dogs are doing as long as they’re not hurting anyone.”
Honnold, whose parents were teachers and who supports strong public services, confessed he, too, was pleasantly surprised by the lower cost of living in Nevada.
“I mean, there’s no income tax! And the house was so cheap, it nearly paid for itself in tax savings,” he said. All those years on the road, living in vans, he had listed his mom’s house in Sacramento as his address.
“That was crazy,” he said, “I was like, why didn’t I move to Vegas sooner?”
Sunrise at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
The Vegas airport is another huge draw for people whose profession demands they travel the world in search of adventure. It’s 20 minutes from Honnold’s house, the security lines are usually a breeze and, because of all the tourists, it has direct flights almost anywhere you’d want to go.
One day, when he was splitting time between training and promoting “Free Solo,” he climbed a 2,000-foot wall in the morning, showered at home, then caught a noon flight to London.
“Where else in the world can you do that?” he asked.
But what about that other side of Vegas, the strip? Honnold said he and his wife go there once or twice a year to catch a show and otherwise avoid it as much as possible.
Does he ever sit down at a slot machine and start pulling the lever?
“If a game is designed for you to lose, why play?” he asked. “I’ve actually never tried it. I like to joke that I only gamble with my life.”
Sports
Brooke Slusser sparks liberal social media meltdown by speaking about SJSU transgender volleyball scandal
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Left-wing social media users launched a volley of insults at 23-year-old Brooke Slusser in recent days.
In response, dozens of high-profile women’s rights activists have come to the former San Jose State University volleyball player’s defense.
Slusser has addressed the critics herself in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“I would just say people that don’t know my life or my trauma don’t have room to say how good or bad my time at SJSU was. I hope they never have to understand going through something as awful as that,” she said.
She has also acknowledged the responses in a series of TikTok posts, as she has become more active on the platform this week to speak about her alleged experience at SJSU.
The online hate campaign started after Slusser shared details about living arrangements in the same apartment with transgender volleyball teammate Blaire Fleming while at San Jose State university, in an interview with Fox News Digital.
During the interview, she said, “You find out you’re just chilling in a bed with a man that you have no idea about… I [was] unknowingly sharing a bed at that time with a man,” and alleged SJSU volleyball coach Todd Kress encouraged her to live in the same apartment as the trans teammate when another group of players were also looking for a final tenant.
The fallout of the interview has prompted high-profile activists, lawmakers and even an actor to speak out, taking a side behind or against Slusser.
Many critics echoed the sentiment that “nothing bad” happened to Slusser, despite the fact that the anxiety from the situation ultimately led to her developing an eating disorder and not being able to complete her college degree.
Former “Glee” actor Kevin McHale even appeared to mock Slusser’s appearance.
A coalition of “save women’s sports” activists rushed to Slusser’s defense, with OutKick host Riley Gaines, XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., women’s tennis legend Martina Navratilova and former ESPN star Sage Steele leading the charge to defend Slusser from the pro-trans detractors.
“Brooke has every right to feel violated. This is a violation of her personal space and boundaries. She was lied to. She would not have agreed to room with or play with a man,” Sey wrote in response to one critic.
Navratilova wrote in response to that same critic, “Brooke has every right to be mad. Try again with the punishment wish…”
Slusser finds herself at the center of a sports culture war flashpoint at a time when the conflict over her school’s handling of her transgender former teammate has reached a political impasse.
‘HORRIBLE’ MOMENTS EXPOSED FOR UNR VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS WHEN THEY WERE ROPED INTO THE SJSU TITLE IX SCANDAL
After the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced at the end of January that an investigation into the university for its handling of a trans athlete and other players concluded that the school violated Title IX, SJSU and the California State University system declined to resolve the violation.
Instead, SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson announced Friday that the school and the California State University (CSU) system are suing the federal government to challenge the investigation.
“Because we believe OCR’s findings aren’t grounded in the facts or the law, SJSU and the CSU filed a lawsuit today against the federal government to challenge those findings and prevent the federal government from taking punitive action against the university, including the potential withholding of critical federal funding,” Teniente-Matson said Friday.
“This is not a step we take lightly. However, we have a responsibility to defend the integrity of our institution and the rule of law, while ensuring that every member of our community is treated fairly and in accordance with the law. Our position is simple: We have followed the law and cannot be punished for doing so.”
The school is also requesting that OCR rescind its findings and close its investigation.
Teniente-Matson affirmed the university’s commitment to defending the LGBTQ community in the announcement.
“Our support for the LGBTQ members of our community, who have experienced threats and harms over the last several years, remains unwavering. We know the attention the university has received around this issue and the investigative process that followed have been unsettling for many in our community,” the university president said.
Among ED’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. The department claims “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
Slusser alleged in a November 2024 lawsuit against the Mountain West that she and former assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose were made aware of a meeting between Fleming and Colorado State women’s volleyball player Malaya Jones on Oct. 2, 2024, during which Fleming discussed a plan with Jones to have Slusser spiked in the face during a match the following night.
Slusser’s own lawsuit partially survived motions to dismiss last week as well.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews dismissed all the plaintiffs’ charges against the Mountain West Conference but did not dismiss charges of Title IX violations against the CSU system.
Crews deferred his ruling on whether to dismiss those charges until after a decision in the ongoing B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected in June.
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Brooke Slusser #10 and Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans call a play during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
The CSU provided a statement to Fox News Digital in response to Crews’ ruling.
“CSU is pleased with the court’s ruling. SJSU has complied with Title IX and all applicable law, and it will continue to do so,” the statement said.
The outcomes of the lawsuits by and against SJSU on this issue could ultimately set a consequential precedent for the future of women’s sports in America.
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Sports
Jessica Pegula’s commitment to hard work every day has turned her into a leader
INDIAN WELLS — Jessica Pegula never needed tennis.
She simply kept showing up for it anyway, through the long and often anonymous slog of the professional tour.
Now 32 and the oldest player in the top 10, Pegula is having her best season start yet.
The fifth-ranked American reached the Australian Open semifinals for the first time in January, falling to eventual champion Elena Rybakina. She followed that by capturing the Dubai 1000-level tournament, just a rung below the majors.
She is 15-2 so far in 2026, tied with Victoria Mboko in match wins and second only to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina (17-3), who she defeated 6-2, 6-4 in the Dubai final.
Pegula is guaranteed to emerge from this week’s BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells as the top-ranked American, overtaking No. 4 Coco Gauff, if she reaches the final.
Jessica Pegula kisses the Dubai trophy after defeating Elina Svitolina in the finals on Feb. 21.
(Altaf Qadri / Associated Press)
First, she will have to get past No. 12-seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, her fourth-round opponent on Wednesday. Bencic has not dropped a set in four previous meetings with Pegula.
“That will be a challenge for me,” said the characteristically even-keeled Pegula after defeating former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the third round on Monday.
A late bloomer, Pegula has taken the long road.
She failed to qualify for Grand Slam main draws in 12 of 14 attempts from 2011 to 2018, and didn’t reach the third round at a major until the 2020 U.S. Open at age 26. All three of her Grand Slam semifinal runs — along with her 2024 U.S. Open final — have come after she turned 30.
Pegula said this week that her patience and persistence stem from “always being a little more mature for my age even when I was younger.”
“I think as I’ve gotten older, your perspective changes as well,” she added.
Pegula, whose parents are principal owners of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, acknowledges that her wealthy family background can cut two ways.
Financial security offers freedom to push through the sport’s early years on tour, when results are uncertain and the grind is relentless. That same cushion might make it easier to walk away if the climb becomes too frustrating.
Jessica Pegula plays a backhand against Donna Vekic during their match at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
(Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Pegula says her motivation to pursue tennis came well before her family’s fortune grew.
“I’ve been wanting to be a professional tennis player and No. 1 in the world since I was like 7,” she said in a small interview room after beating Ostapenko this week.
“It’s a privilege, but at the same time I don’t want to do myself a disservice of not taking the opportunity as well,” she explained. “I’ve always looked at it that way.”
In the last few seasons, that maturity on the court has dovetailed with a growing leadership role off it.
Pegula has served for years on the WTA Player Council and was recently tapped to chair the tour’s new Tour Architecture Council, a working group tasked with examining the increasingly demanding schedule and structural pressures players say have intensified in recent seasons. The panel is expected to explore changes that could reshape the calendar and player workload in coming years.
Pegula said she hadn’t put up her hand to be involved but agreed after several players approached her to take the lead role — though she declined to say who they were.
“I think maybe as you mature … you realize how important it is to give back to the sport,” she said last week.
Life has also provided grounding and a wider lens.
Pegula’s mother, Kim, suffered a serious cardiac arrest in 2022, a situation she discussed in detail in a moving 2023 essay for “The Players’ Tribune.”
The Buffalo native and Florida resident also married businessman Taylor Gahagen in 2021. Gahagen helps “holds down the fort” at home with the couple’s dogs and travels with her when possible. He is with her in Indian Wells.
“I have an amazing support system,” Pegula says.
Despite winning 10 WTA singles titles, achieving a career singles high of No. 3 in 2022 and the No. 1 doubles ranking, Pegula’s low-key demeanor means she flies a bit under the radar.
She’s not one for fashion statements, outlandish antics or attention-seeking initiatives, her joint podcast with close friend Madison Keys notwithstanding.
Instead, Pegula tends to go about her business quietly, relying on a calm temperament and a methodical style that wears opponents down over time.
She gets the job done — the Tim Duncan of the women’s tour.
“She’s just all about lacing them up and competing between the lines, and then trying to be as big an asset as she can to her peers off the court,” says Mark Knowles, the former doubles standout who has shared coaching duties with Mark Merklein since early 2024.
“I think one of her great attributes is she’s very level-headed,” Knowles adds. “She doesn’t get too high, doesn’t get too low.”
Her tennis identity echoes her steadiness.
Instead of bludgeoning opponents with power, the 5-foot-7 Pegula beats them with savvy, steadiness and tactical variety. A careful student of the game, she studies matchups and patrols the court with a composed efficiency that incrementally drains big hitters and outmaneuvers most rivals long before the final score confirms it.
Keys calls that consistency her “superpower.”
“She doesn’t lose matches that she shouldn’t lose,” the 2025 Australian Open champion said this week.
Because of injuries in the early part of her career, Knowles says Pegula might have less wear-and-tear than other players her age. And he and her team have prioritized rest and recovery, which included the decision to skip the tournament in Doha last month following her tiring Australian Open run.
On brand, there was no panic in Pegula after dropping the first set in her two matches so far at Indian Wells. As she’s done all season, she steadied herself to earn three-set wins.
Bucket-list goals remain, however. Chiefly, capturing a Grand Slam title.
Jessica Pegula returns a shot to Jelena Ostapenko during the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Monday.
(Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Pegula jokes that she briefly interrupted a run of American female success when she fell in the 2024 U.S. Open final to No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. But seeing close friend and teenage phenom Keys capture her major in Melbourne last year — after many wondered if her window had passed — hit closer to home.
“I think Madison winning Australia just motivated me even more,” Pegula says.
Although Pegula believes she is among the best hardcourt players in women’s tennis, that confidence hasn’t translated into success in the California desert. She has reached the quarterfinals just once in 10 previous appearances in Indian Wells.
“Why not try and add that one to the resume?” says Knowles, noting that she had never won the title in Dubai until last month. “She’s playing still at a very high level.”
Pegula says the key to keeping things fresh is maintaining her love of the game by continuing to improve and experiment with new ideas, a process that keeps her engaged mentally and eager to compete.
“I’m not afraid to kind of take that risk of changing and working on different things,” she says, “which just keeps my mind working and problem solving.”
For a player who never needed tennis, she remains determined to see how much more it can give her.
Sports
Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo makes NBA history with 83-point game
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Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo made NBA history on Tuesday night.
Adebayo scored 83 points, all while setting league marks for free throws made and attempted in a game for the Miami Heat in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards. It is the second-highest scoring game for a player ever, only to Wilt Chamberlain’s famed 100-point game.
“An absolutely surreal night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters after the game.
Adebayo started with a 31-point first quarter. He was up to 43 at halftime, 62 by the end of the third quarter. And then came the fourth, when the milestones kept falling despite facing double-, triple- and what once appeared to be a quadruple-team from a Wizards defense that kept sending him to the foul line.
He finished 20 of 43 from the field, 36 of 43 from the foul line, 7 for 22 from 3-point range.
After the game, he was seen in tears while he hugged his mother, Marilyn Blount, before leaving the floor after the game.
“Welp won’t have the highest career high in the house anymore,” Adebayo’s girlfriend, four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, wrote on social media, “but at least it gives me something to go after.”
MAGIC’S ANTHONY BLACK MAKES INCREDIBLE DUNK OVER FOUR DEFENDERS IN HISTORIC NBA GAME
Bam Adebayo #13 of the Miami Heat celebrates during the fourth quarter of the game against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center on March 10, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
The NBA’s previous best this season was 56, by Nikola Jokic for Denver against Minnesota on Christmas night. The last player to have 62 points through three quarters: one of Adebayo’s basketball heroes, Kobe Bryant, who had exactly that many through three quarters for the Los Angeles Lakers against Dallas on Dec. 20, 2005.
He wound up passing Bryant for single-game scoring as well. Bryant’s career-best was 81 — a game that was the second-best on the NBA scoring list for two decades.
Adebayo scored 31 points in the opening quarter against the Wizards, breaking the Heat record for points in any quarter — and tying the team record for points in a first half before the second quarter even started.
He finished the first half with 43 points, a team record for any half and two points better than his previous career high — for a full game, that is — of 41, set Jan. 23, 2021, against Brooklyn.
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Adebayo’s season high entering Tuesday was 32. He matched that with a free throw with 5:53 left in the second quarter, breaking the Heat first-half scoring record.
Adebayo’s 43-point first half was the NBA’s second-best in at least the last 30 seasons — going back to the start of the digital play-by-play era that began in the 1996-97 season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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