Climbing great Dean Potter, who began climbing while growing up in New Hampshire, was reportedly killed Saturday in a BASE jumping accident in Yosemite National Park.
According to an article on OutsideOnline.com, Potter and Graham Hunt died after attempting a wingsuit flight from Taft Point, a 7,500-foot promontory that overlooks Yosemite Valley and El Capitan.
Potter, 43, was an innovative and, at times, controversial figure in climbing. According to an article on Climbing.com, he broke barriers in speed and solo climbing, including repeatedly setting the speed record for the Nose of El Capitan. In 2001, he and climber Timmy O’Neill became the first climbers to link Yosemite’s three biggest walls — Half Dome, Mt. Watkins, and El Capitan — in a single day. He also speed-soloed Half Dome and El Capitan in a day. In Patagonia, among many other bold climbs, he free-soloed Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy and later did the first ascent of California Roulette, also free solo, on Fitz Roy.
Born in Kansas, Potter moved to New Hampshire as a kid. A profile of Potter in a 2002 article for Outside magazine described his youth in New Hampshire, where he would sneak onto a military base to climb a 250-foot crag. “We had no idea what we were doing,” Potter said in the article. “We were climbing this pretty scary stuff in Converse All-Stars, getting way up there without a rope or anything.”
Potter enrolled at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, but left school and eventually moved to northern New Hampshire, where he began climbing with John Bouchard, who ran an outdoor gear company in North Conway at the time. “Even then, you could see that he was a pretty pure climber,” said Bouchard. “He didn’t care what others thought, what kind of shoes he wore, none of that.”
Potter eventually left on a road trip that took him to Yosemite, where his climbing and extreme sports legend took off.
Read the 2002 profile of Potter in Outside.