Pro rock climber sentenced to life in prison for sexual assaults in Yosemite National Park

A prominent professional rock climber and guidebook author, who was convicted earlier this year of sexual assaults in Yosemite National Park, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced.

A federal jury found Charles Barrett, 40, guilty in February of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact that occurred in Yosemite National Park, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. Court records showed that Barrett sexually assaulted a woman, who was 19 at the time, on three separate occasions during a weekend in August 2016.

Prosecutors argued that Barrett's life sentence was due to his "long history of violence towards women, his serial sexual predation of female rock climbers who admired him, his obstruction of justice, and his failure to accept responsibility."

The rock climber, who has a record of domestic violence, drunk driving, and making criminal threats, was also accused of sexually assaulting three other women, according to court records. Prosecutors said the three victims testified against Barrett in the Yosemite National Park trial as their testimonies were "relevant to the charged assaults."

But the assaults were not charged because they were outside federal jurisdiction, prosecutors said. Barrett was prosecuted on the federal level due to Yosemite National Park's designation as federal land.

U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert said in a statement Tuesday that Barrett had "used his status as a prominent climber to assault women in the rock-climbing community, and when his victims began to tell, Barrett responded by lashing out publicly with threats and intimidation."

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'Showed no remorse or regret'

Barrett, originally from Santa Rosa, California, was "primarily known for pioneering some of the hardest bouldering routes in California," according to a 2019 article from the Tahoe Quarterly. He also wrote a series of guidebooks that detailed difficult climbs in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where he lived for many years and Yosemite National Park.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Barrett was living and working for a private business in Yosemite National Park in 2016. In August of that year, the victim was visiting the park for a weekend of hiking when Barrett sexually assaulted her three times.

Court documents showed that in the first incident, Barrett had isolated the victim alone in the woods after he initially invited her to watch a meteor shower with friends. The next day, Barrett assaulted the victim two more times before the victim left the park and returned to her parent's home.

"Over the course of the remaining years, Barrett took steps to intimidate and silence" the victim, court documents said. In 2019, Barrett texted the victim so that she knew he was aware of her whereabouts and the victim received random hang-up phone calls from burner numbers.

Barrett also interfered with the victim's ability to get a job and posted on social media threatening victims with lawsuits, according to court documents. One of the victims Barrett threatened testified that he assaulted her in March 2010 at a friend's house.

Court documents said Barrett harassed that victim online for several years after the 2010 incident. And seven years later, in 2017, prosecutors said Barrett "purposely climbed at a rock climbing gym where the victim attended."

In January 2022, Barrett walked into an emergency room and made threats to kill the victim because she "ruined his life," court documents said. He was convicted in August 2022 for the threats he made.

While in custody for the Yosemite National Park case, prosecutors said Barrett made hundreds of phone calls and "showed no remorse or regret."

"Instead, he threatened to use violence and vindictive lawsuits against the victims, claiming that they designed a conspiracy to ruin his life," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release.

Sexual assault incidents in rock climbing community

A majority of sexual assault cases end without convictions, according to The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. Data from RAINN revealed that out of every 1,000 sexual assault incidents, 975 perpetrators "will walk free."

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center noted that sexual assault, harassment, and abuse are widespread societal issues. In the rock climbing community — which has grown in recent years due to a spike in the sport's popularity — a 2018 survey by Safe Outside found that out of more than 5,300 respondents, 47% of women and 16% of men reported experiencing at least one incidence of sexual harassment or assault behavior while in a climbing setting.

Safe Outside, an independent grassroots initiative, also played a role in the case against Barrett, Outside Magazine reported in January. A data analyst with the group had found similarities in incidents that were reported in Northern California and Safe Outside connected with victims who confirmed that Barrett had committed the assaults, according to Outside Magazine.

"Four years after we launched the SafeOutside survey and the subsequent initiative, the first arrest resulting directly from our work FINALLY happened," the group said on Facebook in 2022 following the announcement of Barrett’s arrest.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.