Extreme athlete Dean Potter killed in Yosemite BASE jumping accident

On Saturday evening, extreme athlete Dean Potter died in a BASE jumping accident in Yosemite National Park. He was 43.

A park spokesman said that Potter and a fellow jumper, Graham Hunt, died after attempting a wingsuit flight from Taft Point, a 7,500-foot promontory that overlooks El Capitan. After their spotter lost contact with the pair, search and rescue teams were dispatched to try to locate them, and their bodies were found on Sunday in Yosemite Valley, NBC News reports. Their parachutes had not been deployed.

BASE jumping involves parachuting from a fixed structure or cliff, and is illegal in Yosemite. Potter became active in the climbing and BASE jumping community in Yosemite during the 1990s, Outside reports, and was famous for tightrope walking on a piece of webbing in Yosemite and Arches National Park.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.