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00:19My whole life, I've been obsessed with the dream of falling to my death.
00:35First, I'm in the air.
00:38It's just massive wind speed.
00:41Then somehow there's these strange faceless beings beside me.
00:48They're making weird squeaks.
00:51For some reason, I know to do what they'll do and I'll fly.
00:57All of a sudden, I'm flying,
01:01but I become panicked and filled with anxiety,
01:05start dive bombing back towards the ground.
01:08Right when I'm about to hit it and impact,
01:11I wake up sweating, heart beating,
01:17you know, wondering if I'm dead.
01:26Up here on the top of the Titan,
01:29it's pretty scary coming up here.
01:31I don't know where to jump in with it.
01:42When Dean picked up base jumping,
01:46jumping off cliffs with a parachute,
01:51you could tell that he was nervous.
01:58He was so edgy.
02:0510 seconds!
02:06All right.
02:0810 seconds!
02:10What?
02:11I said 10 seconds!
02:14Don't say anything!
02:16I was telling Brad.
02:20He was drawn like the moth to the flame,
02:24to the most dangerous thing
02:26that he had found in his life.
02:293...
02:302...
02:311...
02:32See ya!
02:46When I was done dying,
02:49my conscience regained.
02:51So I began my struggle,
02:53but nothing is strange.
02:54And I dropped a dog,
02:56climbing into the night sky.
02:58And I said all my prayers,
03:00because surely I'd die.
03:02As I crashed down,
03:03and smashed into earth,
03:04into dirt.
03:05How my skin did explode,
03:07leaving only my shirt.
03:09And the earth went through me,
03:11and said it wasn't that fun.
03:13And I'm reborn,
03:14I'm sorry if I hurt anyone.
03:16She said better love you next time,
03:18Don't worry so much without ears,
03:21I couldn't hear,
03:22I could just feel the touch show.
03:24As I fell asleep softly,
03:26the edge of a monkey,
03:28but I should've gone deeper,
03:30but I'm not so free.
03:45I'm Jay Epstein Ramirez.
03:47You know,
03:48base jumping,
03:49it's one of those sports
03:50that runs right into you,
03:51and socks you in the side of the head,
03:53and just changes your life forever.
03:55Way back in the day,
03:57I met Dean,
03:58at this outdoor film festival.
04:01Dean's climbing movie plays.
04:05And then my movie plays,
04:07of me and my friends
04:08base jumping in Mexico.
04:10And Dean's standing behind me,
04:12as big as a tree,
04:13and he's like,
04:14oh my God, oh my God,
04:15I gotta learn how to do this.
04:19Dean, you know,
04:20I knew the minute I met that guy,
04:22he was destined for madness.
04:25You know?
04:27Before you make your first base jump,
04:29you need to learn how to skydive,
04:32practice,
04:33and learn how to fly your body,
04:35where there's nothing to hit.
04:41Nice job, Dean.
04:43Yeah!
04:44It was like,
04:44pack up the car,
04:45we're driving to Moab,
04:46it's time for your first cliff jump.
04:49Unlike skydiving,
04:50when you base jump,
04:51there's no wind to work with.
04:53So it's really easy
04:54to tumble out of control.
04:56It's a lot like free soloing.
04:58You have to really believe in yourself.
05:00That you can launch in a perfect position.
05:03Five seconds.
05:05In your first jumps.
05:06God damn,
05:07is it scary.
05:08Okay.
05:09Next level's scary, man.
05:18Boy, you know,
05:20Dean's one of those guys,
05:21when he likes something,
05:22he likes something.
05:24Oh yeah!
05:25Ha!
05:26He liked it.
05:28All of a sudden,
05:29he was getting the dopamine
05:30that he needed.
05:32This whole death consequence thing.
05:36Base jumping.
05:37The heaviest drug there was,
05:39and the heaviest dose,
05:40and it was like,
05:41he lit up.
05:42Ba-boom.
05:44All right, brother.
05:45See ya.
05:49But it just made everybody fucking nervous,
05:52I can tell you that.
05:53I had filmed base jumping
05:55before Dean got into it.
05:58and had a base jumper nearly die
06:01in front of my camera.
06:05He's there.
06:06He's floating.
06:07I began to mistrust the nature of the sport,
06:11the addictive power of raw adrenaline
06:14in these concentrations and these frequencies.
06:18I warned you,
06:20you're hitting the stuff too hard.
06:26Woo!
06:27Let's go back to climbing.
06:29Free soloing.
06:30Woo!
06:31That's so beautiful.
06:33Yeah!
06:34But Dean took it as the advice of a friend
06:37that could be easily ignored.
06:41I had been running trips to Mexico.
06:43Wait till you guys get into this place.
06:45It's like going to Mars.
06:46Dean, I mean, he'd only been active six months
06:49when I invited him to go jump the cave of the swallows.
06:53It's just this giant hole in the ground that's perfect for base.
06:57So you're jumping 1,200 feet into the earth.
07:01There's no wind.
07:03It's almost impossible to hit anything.
07:06It's really...
07:07Even though Dean hit something...
07:10The weather had been weird.
07:12We'd gotten some rain.
07:15And I think Dean's parachute got wet.
07:19And that's not good.
07:2110 seconds.
07:242, 1.
07:27See ya.
07:32Dean jumps into the cave.
07:34And his parachute opened, twisted up.
07:38My parachute opened in a spin,
07:41and I lost the perception of where I was flying.
07:46We had a rope hanging in there.
07:48He hit the rope.
07:50The parachute collapsed and wrapped around the rope.
07:53And I swung in and grabbed the rope.
07:56And he's 250, 300 feet off the ground with nothing.
08:00And he's sliding down the rope, burning off my skin on my hands.
08:03And I'm like, fucking don't let go, dude. Don't let go.
08:06I thought, is this like the dream, you know, where I'm falling to my death?
08:10And that feeling charged my body with this amazing power,
08:13and I held on with everything I had.
08:16He literally breaks himself, completely stops, like, two feet off the ground.
08:21And his hands are smoked.
08:23You know, you can see tendons, you can see bone.
08:25When I hit the ground, part of me was ashamed, but mostly I was just happy that I was alive.
08:35Well, as I laid there, there was this dying bird beside me.
08:40And similar to what I had done, the swallow had hit the rope.
08:45My friends came down and rescued me.
08:51And I questioned, why did I live and that bird died?
08:59I am drawn to the pit of swallows.
09:03I have a near-death accident.
09:07And the dying swallow, which Dean has told me he felt came into his body and inhabited his body.
09:15He just says, and the dying swallow, period.
09:18I enter deep depression.
09:21My hands are injured badly.
09:23When you feel you are unstoppable, you have to say enough.
09:35I'm Elizabeth Potter, Dean's older sister.
09:40And I'm a teacher and a writer.
09:44Dean was eight years younger than me.
09:47So he's the baby.
09:49We grew up in a military family, lived for a chunk of time overseas in the Middle East.
09:57When he was almost five, Dean decided he was going to climb up this huge stone wall around our house.
10:04He fell off the very top and knocked himself unconscious.
10:10I probably should have been watching him more carefully, but the story of my life.
10:17After that, he was really plagued by nightmares and night terrors.
10:24Even when we were kids, you know, Dean always talked about the dream of falling.
10:32In the journals, he says that again and again, the dream is back.
10:39You know, he would say to me, do you have falling dreams?
10:42And I did.
10:43I mean, it's a common thing.
10:46But for him, the dream was very real.
10:49And it stayed with him.
10:55When we moved to New Hampshire,
10:59for Dean, school could be difficult.
11:04Being, you know, that family that's not from here.
11:07When I was growing up, I'd arrive at different schools and never quite fit in.
11:14In high school, I didn't make the basketball team.
11:18It was a lot political.
11:19I didn't hang out so much with all the other kids.
11:22I was like an outsider.
11:24And I started working out in the weight room, getting stronger.
11:28Went from being one of the weakest kids to now like the strongest, toughest kid.
11:32I think that brought up that competitive thing that Dean, throughout his life, was trying to manage.
11:40He wanted to be the best.
11:42You know, he wanted to win.
11:46It's been said that Dean was a combination of his army colonel father and his yoga-teaching mother.
11:56There was some truth to that.
11:58But my parents were not a stereotype.
12:02Dad was not a disciplinarian at all and wanted everybody to just have a good time.
12:10And my mother, a lot of Dean's spirituality, his meditation comes from my mom.
12:17But mom was a disciplinarian.
12:21The strictness, this is what you will do.
12:24This is how you will behave.
12:27She would say, you know, you're not going to do anything dangerous.
12:31If you look at pretty much any picture of Dean and mom, she's got one hand on him.
12:36This grip.
12:38You combine that with a spirit like Dean's.
12:42He felt controlled, held down.
12:47If you look at his writing during that time, it's very rageful.
12:53Angry.
12:55Like a trapped animal.
12:59Dean talks in the journals about the sad gene or crazy gene.
13:06His code for the depression in our family.
13:12You know, especially kind of in the years leading up to my parents' divorce, you could feel that energy, that
13:20darkness of a relationship that was coming apart.
13:25It got ugly.
13:29Dean was seeing that his father did not have freedom of voice and choice.
13:37And that really affected Dean in his own relationships.
13:45He was always, no one's going to tell me what to do, no one's going to control my life, I'm
13:50going to do things my way.
13:52That was when he started escaping to Joe English.
13:56There was this cliff on this army base near where I lived and there was just me and this friend
14:00of mine scrambling around, coming across these little crags and going into these off-limits zones.
14:07It was against the rules.
14:09And that's kind of what attracted us to it, was just being free, doing what we wanted.
14:15He would climb without the right equipment, using whatever he could find.
14:21And then he would climb without any equipment at all.
14:25In my teens, I started free soloing on this cliff near my house, being out there alone, with no protection.
14:33It scared me so much, but that kind of magnetized me to it.
14:39I always thought my early childhood dream was the premonition of my death, and I wanted to prove to myself
14:49that I could overpower it, trying to push harder and harder into that fear.
14:56So much of his life has been to prove the dream wrong, plunging forward towards his fear and trying to
15:04conquer it, saying to himself, I'm not going to, I'm not going to die.
15:18That near-death experience in the cave, it humbled him a little bit.
15:26So I don't know if any of you guys heard about my little mishap down in the cave with the
15:32swallows, but it wasn't a whole lot of fun.
15:36And I'm still kind of sorting things out in my head.
15:39But then, I think less than three months later, he actually, like, comes back and is fully functional and jumping
15:47again and, yeah, crazy, right?
15:49Look at that.
15:51I got the call from Dean, and he said, can you come out to Yosemite?
15:55I want to jump LCAP. I want to jump everything.
15:58For base jumper here in the United States, Yosemite, it's the pinnacle.
16:04Huge cliffs, perfect for base.
16:06Biggie, biggie, biggie, biggie.
16:08I've always put all my energy into, you know, holding on to the rock base.
16:13You look very clean, things in place. Looking great, buddy.
16:17Now, if you have the skill to fly your body off the walls, this whole new world has opened up.
16:24You've always wanted to jump off LCAP?
16:26Yes, you're right. Here it is.
16:27Here it is.
16:28See you, Dean. You're the man.
16:32Yeah!
16:34He was horny as horny gets, man.
16:37I mean, the kid was on fire.
16:40We should go for the one day right now.
16:41Not filming LCAP.
16:43Hold on to that here. We're gonna touch it.
16:45Don't touch me.
16:45Okay.
16:46Don't touch me.
16:47No problem, Dean.
16:48See you again.
16:53He owned the valley. I mean, he really did. He had just been there for so many years.
16:57He knew all the cliff exits and landings.
17:02The only problem is, Yosemite has a steadfast policy against base jumping.
17:09The National Park Service says they banned jumping for a lot of reasons.
17:14Gathering spectators and disrupting the serenity of the valley.
17:18National parks weren't set up so that everybody could recreate in every way they wanted.
17:24In the 90s, pretty famous base jumper, Frank Mbali.
17:29All right, kids, this is the real deal.
17:32He was jumping off LCAP.
17:33Somebody ratted him out, just told the Rangers, and they were waiting for him.
17:38He tried to outrun him and swim across the Merced River, and he drowned.
17:42The guy survives all these base jumps, and then he's killed by just trying to get away from the Rangers.
17:49After the death of Frank Mbali, there was quite an uproar and threats of a mass jump.
17:55A few months later, base jumpers organized a protest jump on LCAP.
18:00Woo!
18:03I was there in the meadow.
18:05Base jumpers land and shake hands with the Rangers.
18:08Like, let's try and find some common ground here.
18:10I am not a criminal. I am simply an American.
18:12The agreement was the Park Service would confiscate their parachutes and their gear.
18:16Nine!
18:18Eight!
18:18And then this woman, Jan Davis,
18:20Six!
18:21Jumped off, and I could see it.
18:23One! See ya!
18:25Jan didn't want to lose her stuff, so she used the gear that somebody loaned her.
18:30The problem was, she was used to having the pilot chute mounted on her leg straps.
18:35And she came down, and she came down, and then she started flailing.
18:39She's got problems, man.
18:40She's just reaching on her leg, looking for this pilot chute.
18:44And from where I was, which was at the top of a tree in a meadow,
18:47I saw her hit the ground.
18:50Dude, she's got big... she went in.
18:52Oh, my God.
18:54Boom.
18:55It just... boom.
18:58She just hit.
18:58She went in.
19:00What the fuck?
19:04After that, park services were like, see?
19:08Base jumpers basically became public enemy number one.
19:12For the next few years, base jumping in Yosemite was pretty quiet.
19:17But Dean changed that.
19:20Here in Yosemite, we're in one of the most wild places left in our country.
19:25But base jumping, this ultimate expression of freedom,
19:28for some reason, that threatens them.
19:31And unfortunately, it means that I need to evade the law.
19:38You know, when Dean embraced base jumping,
19:41he really introduced his new era to Yosemite.
19:44Check him out. Check him out.
19:47How cool is that?
19:48Dean definitely inspired a lot of the monkeys.
19:51If you were a climber and wanted to start jumping,
19:54you had his example.
19:56This game of base jumping in Yosemite,
19:59it was sort of secretive society.
20:01It was like a ninja society.
20:03I'm on the top of El Cap.
20:04Yeah.
20:06Dean mentored and coached all of us.
20:09Good.
20:11It's awesome, man, man.
20:12It's like we're jumping again.
20:14Dean was like a father in this way.
20:17Want to give a gear check? Are you all good?
20:19Yeah, check me out.
20:20He was very meticulous.
20:21Pin good. Pin's good.
20:23Dean was doing crazy stuff.
20:25That looks good. That looks good.
20:27But he was really good at minimalizing the risk.
20:29Make it to a nice, safe spot on the far side.
20:32Okay, amigo.
20:34The fact that it's illegal,
20:36that's a whole other, like, level of tension.
20:39But Dean had figured out these rules.
20:41Don't jump in the middle of the day.
20:42We should hold off another 15 minutes at least.
20:4415 minutes, Dean, say.
20:45Early morning, evening,
20:47that minimizes your chances getting caught.
20:50Let's wait, though. We got a guy down there.
20:52You always have ground crew.
20:53It would often be Bullwinkle.
20:54Someone talked with Winky?
20:56My job was to ensure that my jumper
20:58does not get apprehended by law enforcement.
21:01Nothing too out of the ordinary right now.
21:02He's looking almost ready for us.
21:04The first time we ever jumped in Yosemite,
21:06he got a base rig,
21:07and then I had to get a base rig, you know?
21:10Dean gave us advice.
21:12Scary.
21:12He down climbed to a ledge.
21:14They call it the electric chair.
21:15Oh, shit.
21:16Pretty focused, pretty gripped.
21:17Yeah, whenever you're ready.
21:19Fucking hell.
21:20The box is just steamed up, man.
21:22Dean was just calm, relaxed.
21:24Take him off, calm down.
21:26You ready, brother?
21:27Yeah.
21:27Let's do it.
21:28Okay.
21:29Three, two, one.
21:31Three, two, one.
21:32People will be like, you know,
21:33three, two, one, see ya, or like, ready, set, go,
21:35or something like that.
21:36Then maybe just sometimes you're not ready.
21:39I usually don't count, though.
21:40That's the thing.
21:41What do you mean you don't count?
21:42I just don't count.
21:43I just kind of go when it feels good, you know?
21:46Okay, you want me to count, then?
21:47Huh?
21:47Want me to count?
21:49Um, alright.
21:50Alright, Corb, you ready?
21:51One.
21:52Wait, wait, wait.
21:53Three, two, one, or one, two, three?
21:56Three, two, one.
21:57Well, wait.
21:58What did three, two, one, see ya?
21:59I don't like three, two, one, see ya.
22:01Let's just do a one, two, three, go.
22:03Alright.
22:04Okay, that's the count.
22:04Alright.
22:05Holy fuck.
22:07One, two, three.
22:10See ya.
22:11Go, go, go, go.
22:12Go, go, go.
22:13Go, go, go.
22:14Go, go, go.
22:18Go, see ya.
22:20Dean just told me, man, I love you.
22:22You will see another world now.
22:24See ya.
22:25Right now.
22:25Now.
22:33I remember making that comment.
22:34I was like, Dean, like, a lot of the climbers are jumping.
22:36And he just looked at me with a stern Dean voice.
22:39He goes, I know.
22:40It's happening.
22:42He was just, like, prophesizing.
22:45Party time!
22:47Right now, bros.
22:48Let's get it on.
22:49I knew that one.
22:50I knew that one.
22:50I knew that one.
22:52For the Park Service and the federal government,
22:55this was blatantly illegal behavior in a national park.
22:59Dean was the face of base jumping in Yosemite Valley, period.
23:04As soon as that parachute opens,
23:06I'm just scanning for rangers
23:09and looking for my escape route.
23:11These guys better haul ass.
23:13Ron, there's a car.
23:14Dean was high profile.
23:17Naturally drew attention.
23:19The law enforcement officers at Park Rangers would have known
23:21Dean, if caught base jumping, would represent a big catch.
23:27Don't use my name, Puffhead.
23:30They're spending years now of manpower.
23:33I do what I do well, and they're not going to catch me.
23:37I mean, I think Dean had to have something to rebel against.
23:40Yeah.
23:41He saw the rangers as sort of oppressive, authoritarian, tool-like figure.
23:45That was his word, the tool.
23:47If you're looking at this tool, I'm not very happy.
23:51Which I think means tools of fascist oppression or something.
23:55Yeah. We're going to jump this ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-deed-doke spire.
24:00And this was one way to socket to the tool.
24:03Here it is in your face.
24:04And there's nothing you can do about it.
24:06Jump in the spire.
24:08Jump in the spire!
24:13That was fucking awesome.
24:15Face jump with Dean today.
24:18Yeah, he's the man.
24:21Flying with the fucking ravens.
24:28It had been a couple of years since the whole Delicate Arts scandal,
24:31where Dean had lost his hero status.
24:35But now, he was something even better.
24:38He was a fucking anti-hero.
24:42He was even more like that revolutionary, that outsider, that outcast.
24:47He became somewhat paranoid,
24:50and he stayed within this very tight-knit, secret-tip group of people.
24:57People worshipped Dean, and they followed Dean.
25:01I mean, we all did.
25:02His energy was so fucking intense.
25:06The dark parts of Dean, the mystical part of Dean, was coming to the fore.
25:13And he was convinced that he had some connection with fucking ravens.
25:23He looked at him. He looked kind of like a raven.
25:26They both kind of had this gothic doomsday vibe to them.
25:31There was something magical about Dean, but there was also this darkness that lurked inside.
25:37That's why we started calling him the dark wizard.
25:41The dark wizard.
25:43He drew his strength from this dark energy.
25:46The whole dark wizard thing, and the magnetism around Dean was very cult-like.
25:55Dean had been dominating the scene in Yosemite for almost a decade.
25:59Soloing harder than anyone.
26:02Base jumping harder than anyone.
26:04He was still the most badass motherfucker in the valley, right?
26:08Nice.
26:09And we thought we would never see anyone challenge Potter's dominance.
26:15But, you know, nothing is forever.
26:18The next generation comes, and they push the limits further.
26:22Common slate. Take one mark.
26:25My name is Alex Honnold. I'm a professional rock climber.
26:29Growing up in suburban California, my climbing gym showed VHS climbing films on loop.
26:35So I would have been 14 when Master of Stone 5 came out.
26:40Watching Dean Potter going up a huge wall by himself, looking like a total stud.
26:46Yeah, this had a big impression on 14-year-old me.
26:50I just remember thinking that is what badass climbing looks like.
26:54I want to be able to do that.
26:55When I was 19, I dropped out of college.
26:58Went to Yosemite, following directly in Dean's footprints.
27:02Basically, I wanted to climb everything that Dean had ever climbed.
27:04Alex shows up in the valley, hungry to repeat the achievements of his idol.
27:10And he starts ticking them off pretty fast.
27:12We're like, who the fuck is this kid, you know?
27:15When I got to Yosemite, all the cool kids, the stone monkeys,
27:20were spending a lot of time enjoying themselves.
27:22Base jumping, dropping acid, and doing rope jumps.
27:25Life's pretty good here in Yosemite Valley, baby!
27:28Woo!
27:29Yeah!
27:31Yeah!
27:34Woo!
27:35And I came to climbing with a slightly more focused approach.
27:39I would show up in Yosemite with, you know, goals and, like, spreadsheets.
27:43You know, I was really into fitness and training.
27:45I was doing 150 pull-ups before bed every night.
27:47Highlining and base jumping.
27:49I didn't do any of those things.
27:51There was a bit of a generational change.
27:53We were kind of counter-cultural and fucked the rules.
27:57Hey, how are you doing?
28:00Alex was this dork.
28:02Do you have girls in here a lot?
28:04Do I look like I have girls in here a lot?
28:06But we all saw this talent.
28:08I filmed with Eric Perlman from Master of Stone 6.
28:12It was a big deal for me to make it into one of the Master of Stone movies.
28:15Oh, there's this new kid, Alex Honnold.
28:17Dean was actually jealous.
28:19He said, well, I free-solo those.
28:21I said, yeah, but I kind of want to open the doors to some other people.
28:25And, you know, I don't think he really took it that well.
28:28Well, so this is my original climbing journal.
28:32It's a log of everything I've ever climbed.
28:35It has no emotional component to it.
28:38It's just a list of roots.
28:41Oh, here we go.
28:42Hong Kong Phooey.
28:43Hong Kong Phooey is a climb of legend.
28:46Dean Potter's visionary first ascent, the hardest crack in the desert.
28:51This was a climb that took Dean months of brutal effort.
28:57The crack was so narrow that he had to jam his bare toes into it.
29:06Pop Vicodin just to deal with the pain.
29:10I made my way to Utah seeking out Hong Kong Phooey.
29:14I climbed it.
29:15I don't know, I think I did it second go, I think.
29:18Like, why do you take off one shoe?
29:19Why do you take Vicodin?
29:20Why do you do all these things?
29:22I was just kind of like, yeah, I wore my shoes.
29:23It was great. It's fun.
29:24Now I'll go climbing again tomorrow.
29:26With Dean, I built him up on this pedestal,
29:29this incredible, mythical figure.
29:31And then when I started to repeat some of his roots,
29:33I was like, oh, you know,
29:34it turns out that he's still just a climber
29:36and anybody can go climb his roots if they try.
29:40Honnold was quoted in this Climbing Magazine article,
29:42basically called Dean's Climb Easy.
29:44Your quote was,
29:55Yeah, I can see how the quote would rub somebody the wrong way.
29:58I think now in retrospect,
30:00I would phrase it a little bit differently
30:01just so that it pays proper respect to the effort
30:03that Dean put into establishing the route.
30:06Dean definitely read that.
30:08Oh.
30:10Here's a new kid on the block
30:12denigrating his achievement.
30:14Nobody had challenged Dean like that.
30:18This is no longer somebody paying homage to their hero.
30:21This is someone coming for their spot.
30:25At that point, I was young.
30:27I was hungry.
30:28Thinking, what can I do that's new?
30:30It's a step further.
30:31How can I make it a splash?
30:40Moonlight Buttress is a big wall
30:43in Zion National Park.
30:46When Honnold went up there,
30:47it was the proudest solo
30:49that had ever been done.
30:53There's something else about this guy
30:56unlike anything you'd ever seen.
30:59Dean is all about
31:01confronting the fear.
31:03With Honnold, it was like
31:05this weird ability
31:07to
31:09not be afraid.
31:11I'll check out the no-hands knee bar, baby.
31:14Yeah.
31:15I just don't feel fear
31:16as viscerally as other people.
31:18It's all just constructs in your head,
31:20shit that you make up.
31:21People were stunned.
31:25This kid,
31:26who is kind of a one-in-a-billion
31:28climbing freak,
31:29he's dropped right
31:31into Dean's wheelhouse,
31:34playing precisely his game
31:36for someone who had
31:38a monstrous, colossal, psychotic ego.
31:41That has to have been
31:42massively destabilizing.
31:45He always said
31:46he hated the fact
31:47that he was competitive.
31:48That competitiveness,
31:49oh, it was there
31:50deep down inside of him.
31:52Wow.
31:54Honnold lit a fire
31:56under Dean's ass.
31:58Yeah, yeah.
32:03He's trying to figure out
32:04where's my limit?
32:07Stop!
32:08Come on.
32:08How far can I push it
32:10and stay alive?
32:16Fuck!
32:18But I remember thinking,
32:20Fuck!
32:22I'm not sure if he has a plan.
32:25Come, come, come, come, come.
32:27You're gonna hear me now.
32:29Chicky, chock, take and jump,
32:30chicky, chock, chock, chock, chock, chock, chock, chock.
32:31Chock, chock, chock, chock, chock, chock, chock.
32:32And I'm gonna bow, wow, wow.
32:33Nobody should try tight for walking
32:35unless he works for a circus.
32:37See what I mean?
32:40Whoa!
32:41But of course,
32:42there was something cooking
32:44in that manic brain of his.
32:47He knew that
32:48if he was gonna try
32:48to one-up Alex
32:49through soloing harder things,
32:51he was gonna die.
32:52He knew what his limit was soloing.
32:56Alex is younger, stronger, better climber than he was,
32:59and a better soloist than anyone's ever been.
33:04But Dean has all these other skills.
33:08He's got really good vision.
33:10If you want to get into that competition with Alex,
33:12you're just gonna have to focus everything that you've got,
33:14every resource you have.
33:16The Dark Wizard was gonna use his alchemy
33:19to create something new.
33:21Some dark arts.
33:24As humans, we're so limited by the fear we have
33:26of falling to our death,
33:28and, like, my mind's spinning on how to change that.
33:31If you're a free solo and you're climbing up a rope,
33:34you fall, you die.
33:35So, generally, you climb the good notch below your limit.
33:40But imagine if you could find a way to really push your limits.
33:43Instead of certain death, you've got a chance.
33:46How can I turn my biggest fear into, you know,
33:49something I'm comfortable with?
33:51Dean came up with the concept of climbing without a rope,
33:55but with a parachute instead.
33:57If you fall off the rock,
33:58I think I have a fair chance to survive
34:00through this bass-free solo.
34:03You know, I call it free bass.
34:07Bass jumping is already dangerous enough,
34:09but the free bass thing just seemed so out there.
34:17Dean had been looking for a place
34:18to do some test runs of this idea.
34:22He decided to go to Europe,
34:24where it was legal to bass jump.
34:26The first proof of concept.
34:38When I'm on the wall climbing,
34:41knowing I'm going to take a fall,
34:44I'm just feeling real scared and real exposed out there.
34:50I'm sure I have the bass rig,
34:53but that's still super uncertain.
34:59I'm fighting to control the adrenaline pumping through me.
35:12I'm kind of way over-amping.
35:30It's fucking intense, man.
35:32With free bass, I love the idea
35:36that I can change the worst possible thing
35:39to the best possible thing.
35:41Dying to flying.
35:44The biggest danger is hitting the wall.
35:51I need to spin my body
35:53and enter into the tracking position
35:56with my hands at my side
35:57to rocket away from the wall.
36:04It's all really difficult to do.
36:07But I want to get to a point
36:09where I feel a comfort level.
36:14At least in my mind,
36:16this allows me to try things
36:19that I would never try to freeze solo.
36:21I think it has good potential
36:22to be taken further and further.
36:27Once he knew it was possible,
36:29he wanted to take this somewhere iconic.
36:32He chooses this route in Switzerland
36:34on the Eiger,
36:36this mythical place in climbing lore.
36:38The Eiger.
36:39On its north buttress,
36:41there is a shield of blue limestone.
36:45It's the perfect route for the first free bass.
36:52This is how Dean would close it.
36:55When I heard about the free bass concept
36:57on the Eiger,
36:58it's an incredible idea,
36:59and I thought from the beginning
37:02it was possible.
37:03I got a call from Dean.
37:04He said, I have some money
37:06for working on a documentary.
37:08He has this whole production company involved,
37:11but he wanted to keep things small,
37:13just a one-man camera crew.
37:16We had been friends for a lot of years,
37:18and I had been there
37:19for most of Dean's biggest sense.
37:22People would call me the Dean Whisperer
37:24because I could navigate the mood swings.
37:28When he asked whether or not
37:30I want to come along and film it,
37:32I instantly said yes.
37:37When I joined him in Switzerland,
37:39he had shaved his head.
37:42Gave him kind of an agro look.
37:46Instead of hippie Dean,
37:47it was like,
37:48Dean here to do business.
37:54Dean wanted a bass jump
37:56as much as possible to prepare himself.
38:01We stayed down beneath the Eiger
38:04in Loderbrunnen.
38:05Yeah.
38:06That whole area is like
38:08the bass jumping capital of Europe.
38:11Dean was enamored with the bass scene there.
38:15But in my opinion,
38:17the whole scene was pretty disturbing.
38:20It was like hanging out with drug addicts.
38:22You never thought about getting into bass?
38:24No, and I've never smoked crack either.
38:27Yeah.
38:28Wow.
38:29You'd be hanging out with people
38:30and they'd go out bass jumping.
38:32Somebody would die.
38:34And, like, people just
38:36didn't really talk about it.
38:38They just kept jumping,
38:40kind of joking.
38:41You can probably see there.
38:42Yep.
38:42We're on the ground,
38:44hopefully not splattered.
38:46More up.
38:47Sit.
38:47Go.
38:49One morning,
38:51things didn't go as planned.
38:53He kind of got this side-to-side wobble.
39:02Oh, damn it.
39:26A bunch of bass jumpers showed up.
39:28Oh, it's a good-sized fucking tree to get stuck.
39:3025 meters, yeah.
39:31They all thought it was kind of a funny thing.
39:37It was quite amusing to see the best climber in the world get stuck in the tree.
39:41We pulled him out there and he got a bit furry with the moss.
39:44Yeah, I was lucky.
39:46Dean had this really out there emotional energy.
39:50It worried me.
39:52His behavior, his decision-making.
40:00Eventually, we headed up to the Eiger for the freebase.
40:16He wanted to climb this route, deep blue sea.
40:20You do this traverse.
40:22All of a sudden, it drops off a couple thousand feet.
40:26Then you climb up this head wall to the top.
40:30Wild to think about free soloing this route
40:33with nothing but parachute to save himself.
40:40Dean rappelled in to practice the climb.
40:50The climbing was more difficult than he was expecting.
41:01He was having a hard time doing the moves.
41:08He needed to practice a lot more.
41:15But, you know, the weather would come in and then the rock would stay wet for days.
41:22Don't have to go very far for the water.
41:25Drinking from the belly of the Eiger.
41:28We built a camp right on the side of the Eiger.
41:33Got anything you want to say?
41:35It feels pretty claustrophobic inside this fog.
41:42Lightning!
41:44Could be sent in for another 14 or 16 hours of sleep.
41:49After days festering up there, Dean would kind of go to a dark place.
41:56Just stare off into space for hours.
42:02I think he felt pressure to do this climb, to make this film and stay in the limelight.
42:11Why not, why not just solo stuff you can control?
42:27I don't really have an answer.
42:29I don't know what you're doing.
42:33I don't know what you're doing.
42:34It all came to a head one day.
42:37He was, like, getting really impatient.
42:38The weather had been bad for a long time.
42:42And he's like, I'm going to go for it.
42:47It didn't seem good to me.
42:50It didn't seem like he was in the right head space.
42:58He starts out on the traverse.
43:02I'm up above on this fixed line, and there's clouds moving in.
43:11The problem was, if he does fall, he needs to be able to see his landing zone and any obstacles
43:20that could be in the way.
43:31I was hoping he would climb back across and bail on the attempt, but he kept going.
43:50He was forcing it.
43:53It just felt like really forcing it.
44:03And he gets up to, like, the hardest section.
44:12And he has this sequence he has to nail.
44:36He blows his sequence.
44:42Fuck.
44:43He looks at me like deer in the headlights, like, fuck.
44:46I'm fucked.
44:47I can't.
44:47He couldn't reverse the move he was doing.
44:50But with the clouds, he couldn't jump off.
44:54He's like, you got to come get me.
44:58Jim, drop the end.
45:00Okay.
45:01I've got all the rope coiled underneath me.
45:04And he's like, dude, hurry.
45:05I'm barely in here.
45:06If you don't drop the end, I die.
45:10Okay, I will.
45:12Please, Jim.
45:14Will you drop the frickin' end?
45:16It's twisted.
45:17Well, I need a drop.
45:19I'm getting slack to it.
45:20A whole bunch.
45:21More.
45:22More.
45:23More.
45:25Oh, fucker.
45:29And then get down to him, and I get near him,
45:32and he grabs onto my leg.
45:33Like, onto my foot.
45:37And from my leg, he grabs my harness like that.
45:41And clipped into the line.
45:43And then wrapped down to the ledge.
45:45I'm gonna dangle now, Jim.
45:49I was really angry.
45:50I was like, tell me if I'm wrong,
45:53but everything about this today felt wrong,
45:55and you went anyway.
45:57And that was, like, the first time that, uh...
46:04I don't know.
46:05It was, like, the first time that it happened.
46:11And then it got worse.
46:12Because I called him on it,
46:14and I said,
46:15if you're doing this for any other reason
46:18than you wanting to do this climb,
46:20you're an absolute fucking idiot.
46:22And, uh, he tweaked, of course.
46:27Alpha male being talked to like that.
46:30And he said,
46:31well, at least we got the footage.
46:33And I'm like, dude, you know,
46:35there's a bigger picture here.
46:38I thought of the one thing I could do
46:40that could really get his attention.
46:42And I was like,
46:43I'm gonna delete the footage.
46:44He's like,
46:45you're not gonna destroy my art.
46:47He took a rock,
46:48and he, like, threw the rock at me.
46:51And I'm like, you motherfucker.
46:53And I put the camera down,
46:54and I took a rock,
46:55and I threw it at him.
46:57This whole time,
46:58this weather has been moving in,
46:59and he's literally chasing me across the eiger.
47:03I ran off in the head.
47:06Kind of,
47:06what the fuck am I doing up here?
47:11Eventually,
47:12the testosterone subsided.
47:15I hear this voice,
47:16I'm so angry!
47:18I can't find my way down!
47:22And I think I yelled.
47:23I was like, dude, I love you!
47:29We got back to camp.
47:31He was embarrassed.
47:34Really unhappy.
47:39I'm Dean Potter.
47:42And I'm a great guy.
47:44I, uh,
47:45don't have much value for my life.
47:48Just going out on the solo end
47:52where I'm probably going to eat it,
47:54just for the camera.
47:56It's pretty much what I come down to.
48:09I don't think I'm a very good role model for children.
48:20I think he cried all night.
48:29The next day,
48:32we wandered down
48:35and took the train back to Lauterbrennen.
48:40I was, like, fully intending to leave.
48:44I had had enough Dean.
48:48But,
48:48he wanted me to stay.
48:52Felt like I was there
48:54partially to try to help keep him alive.
49:01The weather had been bad for weeks and weeks
49:03and I was kind of freaking out
49:05that I couldn't do my thing.
49:08Instead of,
49:09um,
49:10being the Zen master I want to be,
49:12or whatever,
49:13I gave in to some thoughts
49:15that I should have said no to.
49:18And that's the whole underlying theme in,
49:20in my life is,
49:23is no going over the line.
49:26And then, um, I did.
49:30You know, the clouds were there.
49:32You're gonna die if you fall into clouds.
49:38I had to call for Jim to,
49:40to rescue me.
49:42All because I was feeling the ego pulling in,
49:45couldn't control myself.
49:48I was trying to push a little bit more than,
49:50than was there.
50:01Dean, he was often asking himself,
50:05what is my primary motivator here?
50:11Why am I doing what I'm doing?
50:15He had the devil on the shoulder of,
50:18of wanting to be better than somebody.
50:22Or just wanting to be recognized.
50:26And I think in his most centered moments,
50:30he knew it's getting in the way,
50:32of that pure expression of what you're really capable of.
50:36to be able to live.
50:50A couple weeks later, the weather cleared.
50:53Somehow, he convinced me to go back up with him.
50:58It's like drinking hard, you know.
51:00Once you forget how bad it really was,
51:03you're like, oh yeah, why not?
51:04What?
51:23The whole body's tingling.
51:53He gets up to this spot where they had to rescue him.
52:00He gets everything perfect.
52:06Oh, my God.
52:08Oh.
52:10Oh.
52:16I'm gonna get up.
52:20Oh.
52:27Oh.
52:29Oh.
52:34Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
53:04Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
53:26Oh, oh, oh.
53:28Up there on the Iger, I kind of had this crazy feeling where I knew I was doing this totally
53:35out there thing that I would never do without the parachute on.
53:44But with the spark of the idea and the intention and the willpower, the impossible can become
53:55reality.
54:00Woo!
54:04It was just kind of classic Dean.
54:07The entire thing was a fiasco.
54:10And then he pulls it off.
54:12Three, two, one, see ya.
54:14It was mad genius.
54:36Woo!
54:41People thought this crazy freebasing shit was so compelling.
54:46Then it went to newspapers and television.
54:52And then Dean wanted to take the concept to different disciplines.
54:57Combining base jumping with high lines, losing the idea I once had that falling off the line
55:04was death.
55:05It's like a huge perception change.
55:08Pretty quickly, Dean was everywhere.
55:10It wasn't just inventing new sports.
55:13It was this dark wizard mystique.
55:16This man performs to no one.
55:19Some of that media attention, it was pretty over the top.
55:22This is a man obsessed and willing to risk it all.
55:26But he didn't care.
55:27He created this incredible spectacle that took his shit to a new level.
55:32Dean Potter, venture of the year.
55:34Dean Potter is a paradigm shift in athletic achievement.
55:37And now he's got some brand new sponsorship contracts.
55:39He's becoming more and more famous, getting more and more money, like bling.
55:55And everybody was impressed.
55:58Except, of course, for one guy.
56:01I mean, it's easy to be the best if you're the only one doing it.
56:04And I feel like Dean really took that to darker pastures.
56:06When I saw Dean freebasing, I was like, that's a fun trick.
56:10Like, that's a weird gimmick.
56:11You know, it's, like, really beautiful to watch.
56:13Like, it's really good on film.
56:15But why don't you just sold the route without a parachute?
56:18That's way cooler of an achievement.
56:21Freebasing.
56:22Highlining.
56:23Like, leave it to circus performers,
56:24who would probably do it better anyway.
56:39on a while.
56:41See you later.
56:41Thanks, Dad.
56:42Bye.
56:46Bye.
56:47Bye.
56:50Bye.
56:51Bye.
56:51Bye.
56:55Bye.
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