13 Facts About Dean Potter

Dean Spaulding Potter was an American free climber, alpinist, BASE jumper, and highliner.

Dean Potter completed many hard first ascents, free solo ascents, speed ascents, and enchainments in Yosemite National Park and Patagonia.

Dean Potter won the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2003.

Dean Potter was born in 1972 to an Army officer in a military hospital at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and grew up in New Hampshire.

Dean Potter taught himself to climb when he was in 10th grade in southern New Hampshire.

Dean Potter attended the University of New Hampshire, where he rowed varsity crew.

Dean Potter free-solo climbed a small part of El Capitan in Yosemite, where he pioneered a route he called Easy Rider by climbing down the slabby upper pitches of the route Lurking Fear and then traversed Thanksgiving Ledge to complete the last six pitches and six hundred feet of the route Free Rider.

In July 2006, Dean Potter climbed The Reticent Wall, one of the hardest routes on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, in 34 hours and 57 minutes with Ammon McNeely and Ivo Ninov, slashing five days off the existing time.

Dean Potter had previously created conflict with Park authorities by slacklining between the Three Gossips.

Dean Potter said he would not climb Totem Pole, the spire in Monument Valley that Navajo imbue with religious significance.

Dean Potter was introduced to slacklining by Charles Victor Tucker III, known as "Chongo", one of the first three people to highline across Lost Arrow Spire.

Dean Potter completed a variety of highline-crossings without the benefit of a safety lanyard, backup line, or BASE jumping parachute.

Hunt hit a side wall during the flight while Dean Potter cleared the notch before crashing.