Peter Mayfield, Founder

Peter Mayfield is a long-term social entrepreneur deeply passionate about the transformative benefits people experience through a profound connection with nature.

He has journeyed from two decades as a world-class rock climber and guide (1978–1998) to founding and growing CityRock, the world’s first full-service climbing gym (1990–1996). Peter then launched Yosemite Guides, offering eco-tours for park visitors and environmental literacy field trips for school groups (1998–2004).

In 2006, Peter founded Gateway Mountain Center, an innovative nonprofit that has served more than 30,000 youth through environmental literacy, mountain adventure, and nature-based sensory immersion programs at Donner Summit. At Gateway, he developed a clinically supervised, nature-based therapeutic mentoring program for youth and young adults facing severe emotional disturbance, complex trauma, and substance dependence. This became the first program of its kind in the U.S. to secure County Behavioral Health contracts and Medicaid reimbursement, marking a breakthrough in integrating nature-based therapy into mainstream mental health care.

Today, Peter is channeling his decades of experience into Nature Up Health, advancing proven nature-based methods and systems to improve health and wellbeing at scale.