Dean Potter dies in yosemite

I'm torn on the whole things really.

I can appreciate the theory that everyone gets to lead the life they want, including those who have to scrape him and his buddy off the side of a cliff.

But is there a line there between meeting the challenge and pure recklessness. Does not trying to make a pass through a "notch" in a wing suit cross that line where just having a bit of a fly around before pulling the rip cord behind it? Perhaps it was suicide?

I suppose it's taking on challenges that advances the human experience, but is this not simply fear for fear's sake?

But I guess that's an individual's decision. I'd prefer it if he didn't do it in a nat park.

I have long been drawn to this famous saying by Crazy Horse, often inaccurately rendered. As explained below, it speaks eloquently to the state of mind of those who face the constant possibility, even probability, of death as a consequence of what they have chosen to do.

Crazy Horse was a warrior. To my mind, Dean Potter was a warrior, too. Some would say that Crazy Horse had no real choice, whereas Dean Potter did, but I suspect that, in the end, both did what they had to do.

"–"Hokahey" is a man's exclamation in Sioux, similar to the American expressions "Let's do it!" or "Let's roll!" The reason people think it means "it's a good day to die" is that the Lakota Sioux leader Crazy Horse famously exhorted his troops "Hokahey, today is a good day to die!" Which meant something like "Let's go men, today is a good day to die!"

http://www.native-languages.org/iaq21.htm

Crazy Horse did mushrooms according to the history that I've learned. He was a mystic. Suicide is always suicide. It is never a good day to die. It does make a good story and is a source of pride for the living. It does nothing for the dead. This guy wasn't a warrior. Simply a thrill seeker, who had a bad day. It was a bad day to die. Too bad.

"Live to fight another day"

"Crazy Horse did mushrooms according to the history that I've learned. He was a mystic."

Well there you have it Tom, better go find yourself someone better to quote!

I have a hunch that the Crazy Horses of this world make more sense to us poets and romantics and dreamers.

I din't know DP, and won't judge his choice of activities. Its Ok if he does dangerous stuff, and OK if I do less dangerous stuff. I could be killed riding a bike to work, or driving a car to the trailhead, or from food poisoning from my own cooking. We all decide how much risk vs reward is good for us.

I have known people who have a deep need for the surge of adrenaline that comes from high speed, high risk, high exposure hijinks. The person I refer to was very coordinated, very fearless, very skilled, very often involved in accidents. He was the picture of grace and skill when telemark skiing in the backcountry. He was in injurious skiing accidents, bone breaking climbing accidents, lots of cases where he set up his climbing partner to fall, and finally, a mountain bike accident that left him a paraplegic. He was a confident climber, and once climbed up 60' on a rock with no protection. He was roped, but placed zero protection. He fell all the way to the ground, into his "belayer". Both of them suffered broken bones. That didn't slow him down a bit.

I think there are guys like that who have to take big risks and get the big adrenaline rush, and it seems about inevitable that they end up paraplegic or dead. Whatever, to each his own.

"Well there you have it Tom, better go find yourself someone better to quote!"

I guess you're right, Craig. But how was I to know he was just a garden variety acid head?

"I have a hunch that the Crazy Horses of this world make more sense to us poets and romantics and dreamers."

Yup.

Hokahey, Thread, it's a good day to die!

NYT Op-Ed: "No, the flaw was not in the system, but in the cultural celebration of sport-assisted suicide. I love Potter’s spirit, but not his actions. The kind of cliff-diving that Potter did is considered the riskiest sport in the world. But to call it a sport is charitable. It’s death-courting. Odds are with death.

Dean Potter thought he was flying. He was just falling. And last Saturday, he fell to his death, his final act a cautionary tale as old as the one that the ancient Greeks told about Icarus."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/to-fly-and-die.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

I thought they were talking about Pro Football for a second. But then I remembered that it isn't actually a sport.

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”

― Ernest Hemingway

edit:

It strikes me that the author of the NYT article quoted above would very likely have said something very similar about the Wright Brothers' first fatal crash, had he been alive to warn us all about how humans trying to fly is pure folly, Icarus territory, etc. The following quote is from this link: http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/a/firstcrash.htm

"It had only been five years since Orville and Wilbur Wright made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk. By 1908, the Wright brothers were traveling across the United States and Europe in order to demonstrate their flying machine. Everything went well until that fateful day in September that began with a cheering crowd of 2,000 and ended with pilot Orville Wright severely injured and passenger Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge dead."

Being at the cutting edge can be dangerous. It only took 5 years of flying for the Wright brothers to kill someone, yet Dean Potter "spent 22 years defying the limits — and the law — of what is an acceptable way for a human being to interact with Yosemite’s towering granite." So who was more reckless? Whose "calculations" were more accurate? Were the wright brothers really not in it "for the thrill" or for the fame/publicity/money/adrenaline rush? Was flying a homemade airplane in 1908 really all that different in the risk/reward calculation than flying a modern wingsuit?

Was flying a homemade airplane in 1908 really all that different in the risk/reward calculation than flying a modern wingsuit?

Obviously, yes.

Is going over Niagara falls in a barrel different than lashing together some logs to make the first sailing craft? Was living with bears really that different than domesticating birds in exchange for an endless supply of eggs (vs. eating them)?

Seems there's a good bit of false dichotomies floating around here. There are lots of other options aside from living a life you can't abide and doing "what you love,." There is some point in between where people disagree whether the risk is worth it, but attempts to whittle it down to some inane maxim like: "In the end the point is not who lived better than who, but more a question of whether or not we're living the lives we want to live." You do realize that that sentence is oxymoronic. It simply says that "better" is measured by coming closest to "living the life we want to live" which contradicts the initial clause.

It's like saying: the point is not whether x=y, but more a question of whether x-y=0.

For those who care, this is a thoughtful, well-written, well-researched article:

http://www.sfgate.com/living/mensjournal/article/The-Last-Flight-of-Dean-Potter-6281144.php

One fact stated in that article is at odds with this story, and this one, in the same paper. Not that it matters. But perhaps we should error on the side of skepticism when reading stuff on the Internet.

Sorry.. Second contradictory story is here: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Yosemite-plunge-Fatal-mistake-in-a-sport-with-no-6271703.php

Funny how people whose opinions mirror our own are always much more intelligent and informed than everybody else.

http://www.kansascity.com/living/travel/article22153692.html

No doubt, Dean Potter was not your normal national park-goer doing normal stuff.

more at link

One fact stated in that article is at odds with this story, and this one, in the same paper. Not that it matters. But perhaps we should error on the side of skepticism when reading stuff on the Internet.

So, I guess there’s no consensus as to the mechanics of what went wrong?

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin’ Jim’s Blog

Eric, are you trying to say that BASE jumping is as deadly as taking pictures of bison? Surely you understand that the number of people engaging in wildlife viewing, hiking, and standing on the edges of cliffs is probably tens or hundreds of millions of times greater than the number of BASE jumpers.

The death rates from those other activities must be smaller by 7 or 10 orders of magnitude.

"people engaging in wildlife viewing, hiking, and standing on the edges of cliffs… The death rates from those other activities must be smaller by 7 or 10 orders of magnitude."

Yes, if you average it across everyone – because the vast majority of people do these things sensibly and safely.

However, many of the accidents that do occur are not random, one-in-a-billion chance events. They are the direct and predictable result of monumentally stupid behavior. Some people go out into the wilderness so ill-prepared that they do a pretty good job of approaching within a couple of orders of magnitude the risk of BASE jumping. You don't have to look too far on youtube to find behavior toward wildlife that's inviting a Darwin award. And alcohol is a factor in many injuries and deaths in the Parks, just as in the cities.

(Not that any of this is remotely relevant to Dean Potter's autonomy to live his life as he chose; but if people are arguing along the lines of "using up a disproportionate amount of NPS resources", I suppose maybe it's relevant.)

Scott

My point is simply that what one does is ones owns business as long as it doesnt hurt others

Why folks care so strongly on da intrawebz about what someone who they never met does … And something that really wont have any effect on them in any meaningful way is really beyond me

If we want to talk about rescue or recovery costs theyres many more activities that affect the budgets

One thing to remeber with top level climbers is the AMOUNT of time they spend climbing … They likely spend 200+ days a year outside on the rock … If you factor that in the death/injury rate … Even if its 10 times higher they spend 10 times longer climbing that many "normal" climbers

As ive said before mr potter didnt die climbing despite the risks he took there

In fact i would venture that someone totally new at hiking venturing on their first scramble is probably taking a bigger "risk" than one of the famous free soloer running up a climb theyve done before

One thing to note is that i havent heard in real life from any climber who climbs a decent amout about how reckless mister potter was

Most of this yapping is from folks on da intrawebz who rarely or dont climb

I cant speak for basejumping as i dont do that activity … But for climbing the risks these top level climber take may well be not much greater than one normal climbers take

Remeber to them a climb that would challenge many here is basically a walk up the stairs

And they do it many times more often than folks here

Heres a good friend soloing last week up a moderate climb i just cleaned

He mostly solos for the last decade … Nothing hard … But he does 1000-2000+ solo pitches a year

Now its always possible something may happen but when you consider hes soloed ~20,000+ pitches since the turn of the millenium (and more in his lifetime) … Thats more than most "normal" folks will climb roped up in their climbing lives

There are quite a few folks around squamish like this