Maybe that's why more people are climbing in the U.S. than ever before—4.6 million last year alone. There are now hundreds of climbing gyms open around the country, but Joshua Tree National Park remains one of the best places in the world to solve bouldering “problems.” (That's lingo for the paths a climber takes.) “There is something ineffable about the place,” says Chin, the 42-year-old outdoors legend who's both skied down Mount Everest and climbed the 408-foot-tall spire that sits atop One World Trade Center to shoot a cover photo for The New York Times Magazine. He also knows a thing or two about Joshua Tree, having spent time in his 20s “living out of my car as a climbing bum,” he says.

Elias, the third member of our crew for this shoot, hails from Detroit, where you don't see too many rocky crags. But a trip to climbing camp in Colorado and a drive to pursue ski racing landed him in Utah at 16. Today he makes his living in the mountains. When asked to reveal the best part of his job, Elias gives a simple answer: “Freedom,” he says. Let's all go get some.