The Golden Handcuffs
A reflection of years spent in Yosemite Valley and working through identity while climbing Golden Gate
June 2024
Written by: Christian Black
This essay is a reflection of my personal experience, and is not necessarily meant to speak for others. If it resonates with others, I hope it can offer some comfort in a shared experience.
I have given Yosemite years of my life, building myself into the climber I wanted to be. It is the place in which I first “found myself.” I had put in the hard work to become a Yosemite climber, having escaped my Texas roots in an effort to become someone new. I lived my own dream, becoming a member of the Search and Rescue team for two seasons, and finally reaching my dream job as a climbing ranger in the mecca of the climbing world. I belonged. Yet, at the prime of my years working there, I felt for the first time the slow grip of the golden handcuffs that Yosemite so graciously gifts those who choose to make a life there. This is the term often used by the returning inhabitants to Yosemite Valley.
The Golden Handcuffs are my closest friends. They are afternoons lounging in meadows. They are the crisp water of the Merced on my sun-baked body, the evening glow of sunset on El Cap, and the drone of waterfalls that lull me to sleep. The Golden Handcuffs leave me sore after a run in the High Sierra, elated on a climb high above the valley floor, and satiated by a community. They are paradise. Golden.
It is only upon leaving each season that I felt the tightening click of the handcuffs. A sense of lostness each fall as I decided where to go. Click. A longing for home that I only found in my friends, each now dispersed into the wind for the next six months. Click. Most apparent though, a deep questioning of who I was outside of this place. Click click. I struggled to understand my identity outside of the tight-knit world of the Yosemite climbing community. Not because we are necessarily defined by our climbing acheivements, but because climbing draws upon a vulnerable and authentic energy that is seen, deeply seen, by your peers. It was the struggle of going from known to unknown. I coasted without myself until I could return each spring.
While I was growing as a climber in Yosemite, after some time, I began to feel stagnant as a person. I knew Yosemite was not a forever home and I felt ill-equipped to transition into the real world. How else could I use my skills and experiences learned here? I struggled to find ways to apply my Yosemite experience to anything other than climbing itself. I didn’t know the answer, but I also knew I wouldn’t find it if I stayed.
It is an uncomfortable feeling to reject a place that has given you so much, but growth comes from uncomfort. If there is anything I have learned through climbing, it is how to be uncomfortable. The tough decision to leave, to face my identity outside of Yosemite, began an almost three year hiatus from this place in which I learned to love it from afar, dreaming to return as a new, fuller version of myself.
And so began the great experiment. Can I spend time away from this place to expand and explore other areas of my life, and still become capable of fulfilling a lifelong dream to free climb El Cap? Fast forward through three years of experimentation in the great game of life, figuring out where I wanted to go and who (else) I wanted to become as a person. Trips to Mexico, Colombia, Alaska, Canada, Spain, and India continued to shape and grow me as a climber. I continued growing in my field biology work. I experienced an amazing and fulfilling romantic relationship. I experimented with finding a home base, and finally settled into an amazing community in Salt Lake City. I even hired a climbing coach and began to train seriously for the first time.
The test now was to come back to Yosemite, three years later, to see if I had also become the climber I wanted to be.
It seemed the answer was no.
* * *
Scott Bennett warming up for the Golden Desert pitch
Scott Bennett and I had teamed up for an effort on Golden Gate, both of our original partners unfortunately suffering from injuries and having to bail. I had met Scott through mutual friends but we instantly got along. Aside from a legendary climbing resume including Cerro Torre, new alpine routes in the Himalayas, or three El Cap routes in a day, Scott is known above all for being incredibly kind. His positive attitude and authentic friendliness are immediately apparent. When Scott texted me looking for a partner for Golden Gate just half an hour after my partner and I had bailed from our start on the route I immediately said yes.
It was now day ten on a ground-up* effort at freeing Golden Gate, the previous nine days having sapped every ounce of energy to red-point through each of the crux pitches below. On day three we had sent the first of the hardest pitches, The Downclimb, but another three days of effort would be required before finally red-pointing The Move pitch on day six. The fatigue was compounding, and after two more days of lead efforts Scott and I chose to top-rope the Golden Desert pitch on day eight and move on to the final crux pitch. Fifty feet of traversing on sloping holds and small feet marked the last of the hard climbing on the route, and in a proud effort Scott polished off his send of the A5 Traverse on the morning of day nine. Out of food, we climbed to the summit to retrieve a final day's worth of food brought to us by a friend and slept on top. The morning of day ten we rappelled back in to the A5 Traverse so I could have one more chance at the only section of route I had yet to free-climb.
But now I found myself slumped in my harness, hanging from the rope on the A5 traverse. Two failed attempts have left me exhausted, drained, wanting to cry. My elbows ache from tendonitis and I feel like sleeping for two weeks. Five feet of climbing separate me from my decade-long dream of free climbing El Cap, but my body has nothing left to give.
Scott encourages me to give it one more go. He believes I can do it, I remain unconvinced. As I summon the energy for a final try, I look around for my good-luck charm, the peregrine falcon nesting nearby. It is nowhere to be found. I make my way to the start of the pitch, feeling heavy with anxiety and mind-numbing exhaustion.
I start up the opening moves to a rest and begin to reflect on my experience. “Have I come all this way, gotten this close, just to fail on the final five feet of climbing? Maybe I have not become who I wanted to be”. I felt the familiar click of the golden handcuffs, and it dawned on me. After all these years away, I still had a portion of my identity tied to success in this place.
A moment of clarity struck me. It is unimportant whether or not I send, that has no reflection on my character. My character is shown through my relationships with friends and family, how I treat people, my attitudes, my actions. I will not be anybody different by doing this rock climb. Who I do want to be though, for myself, is a person who finds joy in trying, regardless of the outcome. That is enough for me.
I felt my mind ease, finally, from the burden I had been putting on myself. The key to the golden handcuffs finally twisted into the lock and released. Moments I barely remember pass as my body executes the well-rehearsed dance of final moves, coming-to as I reach up to grab the final hold.
For the first time on a climb, I broke down into tears. Tears of relief, disbelief, and, strangely, a form of sadness that it was over.
I had crossed through my own golden gate, one that made me realize that the simple effort of trying is what made me who I wanted to be.
* * *
Back to the question of how to apply my Yosemite experience to the outside world. I don’t think there is a ubiquitous answer, but what I have taken most from my time in Yosemite is the skill of knowing myself, confidently, in a way that I did not before. To know what a good friend is, to know how to recognize a beautiful place, to know that I am capable of trying, hard, for things I care about. This is what I carry forward from Yosemite.