Image from deanspotter.com
Dean Potter and Graham Hunt have died following a BASE jump last evening, May 16. The two were attempting a wingsuit flight from Taft Point, a 7,500-foot promontory that overlooks Yosemite Valley and El Capitan.
Potter and Hunt were aiming 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,” Yosemite chief of staff Mike Gauthier says. On Sunday morning, a state police helicopter was able to spot both bodies from the air. No parachutes had been deployed.
Potter notoriety started in the late nineties, when he began making bold solo and free-solo ascents of many of Yosemite’s classic rock routes. 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 was 43.