An Important Message from Gateway Mountain Center
July 11, 2025
To Gateway Community Partners, Friends, and Supporters:
After nearly 20 years of service in the Truckee-Tahoe community, Gateway Mountain Center is beginning a thoughtful wind-down of operations.
This past year, with support from donors and public grants, we took bold steps to expand our impact — acquiring the Ilfeld High Mountain Lodge to create a nature healing center and expanding our WHMB program to San Francisco. Like many nonprofits, we’ve faced steep financial and operational challenges which were further exacerbated by these efforts. Despite reducing costs, shifting leadership, and launching a fundraising campaign, we haven’t been able to secure the long-term funding needed to continue.
Our top priority remains the young people in our Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies (WHMB) therapeutic mentoring program — youth ages 8 to 18 who receive one-on-one, nature-based mental health support. In Truckee-Tahoe, we currently serve 40 youths, with another 15 on the waitlist. Demand continues to grow, and we’re working closely with a set of committed community partners to ensure this vital program finds a permanent new home and services can continue uninterrupted. We're actively engaging with prospective acquisition partners in Tahoe and San Francisco who share our vision and can continue and grow this essential work.
We’re also preparing to sell the Ilfeld High Mountain Lodge as part of the organizational wind down and will permanently close our Sierra Experience programs. We are hoping to identify a buyer in the behavioral health space who shares our vision and may continue the work to realize the Nature Healing Center on Donner Summit.
We’re incredibly proud of the impact we’ve had over the past 20 years. While this isn’t the ending we envisioned, we are approaching this transition with care and integrity — focused on honoring the youth, families, donors, and community partners who have been part of our journey.
Thank you to all of you who have supported Gateway Mountain Center over the years — we are deeply grateful. Our hope is that Gateway’s impact will live on through others in the community who carry forward our mission: To support young people from all backgrounds in transforming their lives through nature-based experiences that foster connection to self, community, and the natural world.
With continued gratitude,
Gateway Mountain Center
Board of Directors
Helping youth learn, heal, and thrive
Gateway Mountain Center brings together the transformative power of human connection and nature immersion to help young people learn, heal, and thrive.
Our innovative, science-informed method called 4Roots for Growing a Human supports the emotional, mental, physical, and social well-being of all young people—regardless of where they come from, their life experiences, and their physical abilities.
Our work happens in all the places where young people need this support. That includes working with schools, collaborating with community groups and youth organizations, offering services at our community wellness center, and delivering our clinically supervised, nature-based, therapeutic mentoring program.
4Roots Method
4Roots for Growing a Human is our innovative, science-informed method, which we use across our programs to help young people learn, heal, and thrive. We call our method 4Roots because the science of healthy development shows that there are four roots for healthy, holistic human development.
Our Programs
Our holistic programs tap into the transformational power of nature —both as a teacher and as medicine.
-
Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies
Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies (WHMB) brings young people out of the clinic and into the outdoors through a clinically supervised, nature-based, therapeutic mentoring program for young people who have complex emotional and behavioral needs, and require intensive and frequent mental health support.
-
Sierra Experience
Sierra Experience offers nature immersion experiences to young people to open their hearts and minds to the natural world. We partner with schools, community groups, and youth organizations to offer trailblazing environmental education, including field science, outdoor adventures, mindfulness practices, and customized personal development. Young people learn to cultivate knowledge and curiosity about the natural world as they develop their whole selves, forge their own growth, and build connections.
-
4Roots Youth Wellness Center
The 4Roots Youth Wellness Center is our community-based wellness center where young people in the local community around Truckee, California, can receive support to achieve emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and physical well-being. We offer holistic wellness services and customized programs for individuals and groups.
A Snapshot of GMC’s Reach & Impact
-
30,000
Youths Served
-
75
Schools Reached
-
2,300
Happy Campers
Our Commitment to Equity
Our commitment to equity means we see and hear each and every young person for their whole self, supporting the totality of their development and well-being.
Latest News
Our Guides & Therapeutic Mentors
Our guides and therapeutic mentors lean into the proven power of authentic relationships, meeting young people where they are with openness and compassion, nurturing self awareness and igniting the passion for self-discovery.
Tahoe & San Francisco Locations
Gateway Mountain Center has been making a positive impact for over 12 years in the Truckee/Tahoe area with its innovative Whole Hearts, Minds, and Bodies (WHMB) program. Inspired by this success, we are expanding the program to San Francisco and extending this valuable service to Medi-Cal-eligible, high-need youth in the diverse community of San Francisco.
Our Partners
