Star climber sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual assault in Yosemite National Park

A star climber and travel guide author has been sentenced to life in prison for sexual assaults he committed in Yosemite National Park.

Charles Barrett, 40, was found guilty in February of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of sexual abuse for repeatedly raping a 19-year-old woman who had traveled to Yosemite National Park for a weekend of hiking.

“Barrett’s long history of sexual violence justifies the imposition of a life sentence,” U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert of the Eastern District of California said in a statement Tuesday. “He used his status as a prominent climber to attack women in the climbing community, and when his victims began to speak out, Barrett responded by publicly responding with threats and intimidation.”

This behavior goes back decades, according to a profile of the case published in January 2024 in Outside magazine, which details how Barrett’s reputation in the climbing community isolated him.

For years after the attacks, he continued to stalk, harass and threaten his victims when they tried to go public – and in some cases even when they didn’t.

The case in question used court documents and evidence to detail how the victim traveled to Yosemite in 2016, where Barrett worked for a private company and lived in the park.

Under the pretext of accompanying the woman to a meteor-watching party, he isolated her in a forest, strangled her and raped her. He did it twice more that weekend. He was arrested in 2022.

The testimony of two other victims was admitted at trial, but they were not part of the case because the attacks were not committed on federal land.

Barrett continued to harass one of those victims for years after the assault, even showing up at a climbing gym she frequented. When she had him banned from the gym for the safety of the other female members, he continued to harass and threaten her for years, according to the Justice Department.

He was convicted of these criminal threats in August 2022.

In addition, he made hundreds of phone calls threatening violence and revenge and made statements expressing a complete lack of remorse or regret, federal authorities said.

Neither Barrett nor his lawyers have commented publicly on the case and declined to comment at his sentencing, Outside magazine reported.