"Because it's there."

Denali Justice

The idea of suing anyone associated with a rescue effort, even the federal government, typically provokes a negative reaction from many.

The Judge said, "I just cannot imagine how human beings in the safety and warmth of the helicopter, a large heavy Army Chinook, flying over these people, realizing that the weather was picking up and they probably could not land, how they could fly over and not so much as drop a knapsack to these people."

Kahiltna base camp was deployed yesterday.

Oopsie.

Stranded on Dickey.

RIP, Dean Potter. You scared the shit out of us, inspired us, did stuff we thought was impossible, and you did it all with a kind spirit and a generosity that we all admired. Besides, you loved your dog.

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On Saturday evening, May 16, BASE jumpers Dean 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 has been a fixture on the climbing and BASE-jumping scene in Yosemite since the late 1990s. According to Yosemite chief of staff Mike Gauthier, the pair made the jump late Saturday. Their spotter heard two sounds that could have been impacts or could have been the noises made by parachutes snapping open. She followed standard protocols, first trying to reach the pair by radio, with no luck, and then moving to a predetermined meeting place. “They were optimistic, thinking that the men might have been arrested,” says Gauthier. BASE jumping is illegal in Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) initiated a hasty search, but the rangers were unable to locate the pair overnight. Potter and Hunt had been attempting to fly along terrain that required them to clear a notch in a rocky ridgeline. “It’s kind of a trickier flight to go through this notch,” Gauthier says. On Sunday morning, a state police helicopter was able to spot both bodies from the air. No parachutes had been deployed. Two rangers were then airlifted to the site to perform the recovery.

Survivors include Potter’s girlfriend Jennifer Rapp and his dog, Whisper, a blue heeler who has played a prominent role in Potter’s adventure life for the past few years.

Potter first came to prominence in Yosemite in the late nineties, when he began making bold solo and free-solo ascents of many of the park’s classic rock routes. By the middle aughts, he’d elevated slacklining—tightrope walking on a piece of webbing—to an extreme art form, making safe crossings of such notable features as Lost Arrow Spire, in Yosemite, and the Three Gossips feature in Arches National Park. Many times he’d make these crossings with no safety tether.

Potter came under fire in 2006 after he free soloed Delicate Arch, in Arches National Park, a sandstone feature that appears on Utah license plates. After the Delicate Arch climb, sponsor Patagonia dropped both Potter and his wife at the time, climber and BASE jumper Steph Davis. Potter always maintained that the ascent was both lawful and respectful. “I was just climbing a beautiful rock that hadn’t been free climbed before,” he told me in February.

Potter continued to innovate in the world of extreme sports. In 2008, he climbed the 5.12 Deep Blue Sea route on the north face of Switzerland’s 13,020-foot Eiger with only a parachute on his back. He dubbed the sport free-basing. He also began crossing highlines using a parachute for safety.

Last year Potter and Rapp produced a film called When Dogs Fly that chronicled Potter’s adventures BASE jumping with his dog, Whisper. The eventual footage of Whisper, wearing goggles and cinched between Potter’s back and his parachute pack, became an online sensation, though some people worried about Whisper’s safety.

Potter was 43.

trysail said:

Sorry, Perg, but this guy was too close to the line demarcating assholery for my taste.

The Delicate Arch stunt was pure selfish, self-promotion and the general disregard for the law was offensive.

He gets a posthumous Darwin Award.


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Well, I understand your view. Climbers who actively push the limits are always controversial to some degree, it seems. Royal Robbins and Warren Harding, Mallory, Hillary, Messner, Twight, name your hero, there's someone who sees them as brash, self-promoting assholes. I have a somewhat biased view of these things myself.

They look so tiny, when compared to what surrounds them.

gotsnowgotslush said:

They look so tiny, when compared to what surrounds them.

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The Kahiltna Ice Fall.

The Brits are going to attempt Mt. Hunter.

As of yesterday, there were 429 climbers on the mountain and another 112 who have finished climbing, the park service said. Only one had summited.

We got a few showers, they got 3' of new white shit.

French Ridge of Mt Huntington.

Doesn't look like a nice day.

*looks* I will look at that, when it jumps over 80f, this week.

Time to see if Denali measures up.

thør said:

As of yesterday, there were 429 climbers on the mountain and another 112 who have finished climbing, the park service said. Only one had summited.

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trysail said:

Am I reading this correctly? Of 113 who started, only one reached the top?


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It was a brutal early season.

166 peaks