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Published March 27, 2026 07:00AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Dean Potter isn\u2019t a name you forget. On May 16, 2015, the famous climber and BASE jumper fell to his death after a wingsuit flight in Yosemite. He was 43 years old.<\/p>\n
I had just started working for\u00a0Outside\u00a0<\/em>as a news writer and social media manager a couple of weeks earlier. I stumbled upon the news on an old climbing forum, and those far more senior than I worked to verify the facts. Even as someone not deeply embedded in the hardcore climbing scene and brand new to the outdoor industry at the time, I was familiar with Dean\u2019s career and knew the community had lost a legend.<\/p>\nDean Potter became known in the Yosemite climbing world in the 1990s for tackling free-solo (climbing without a rope for protection) climbs in the park. He began to experiment with free-soloing while wearing a parachute for protection, which he called free-basing. Throughout his career, he also tried highlining, wingsuit flights, and BASE jumping, and he created a film about BASE jumping with his small dog, Whisper.<\/p>\n
In 2002, Potter graced the cover of Outside<\/em> magazine. The accompanying profile, titled \u201cClimbing at the Speed of Soul,\u201d chronicled his talents as a speed climber on El Capitan, where he shattered various records for ascending the toughest routes.<\/p>\n(Photo: HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNow, a new HBO series that explores the life of Potter is about to be released. The Dark Wizard<\/em> is directed by Emmy-winning filmmakers Peter Mortimer of The Alpinist, The Dawn Wall, <\/em>and\u00a0Valley Uprising<\/em> and Nick Rosen of Valley Uprising <\/em>and The Alpinist. <\/em>It features cameos from big-name climbers like Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright. \u201cHe was the most badass motherfucker in the Valley,\u201d says Wright of Potter in the trailer.<\/p>\nThe four-part series premiered at SXSW on March 15, 2026, and will move to HBO on April 14. Outside\u00a0<\/em>received the exclusive trailer for The Dark Wizard,<\/em> which you can watch above.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I was a little boy, my first memory was this dream of falling,\u201d says Potter in the trailer. \u201cMy whole life, I\u2019ve been obsessed with the dream. But maybe it wasn\u2019t me falling to my death; maybe it was me flying.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the creators of \u2018The Alpinist\u2019 and \u2018The Dawn Wall,\u2019 this docuseries explores the high-stakes life of the climbing legend who fell to his death at 43 years old. Watch the exclusive trailer here. Published March 27, 2026 07:00AM Dean Potter isn\u2019t a name you forget. On May 16, 2015, the famous climber and BASE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wild-living"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}