Dean Potter
With the highlining I'm not blocking out the fear, I'm feeling the fear and absorbing everything that's around me, trying to calm my heart, not hyperventilate and keep it together.Collection: Fear
The wilderness is infinite in what it offers.
I'm addicted to the heightened awareness I get when there's a death consequence. My vision is sharper, and I'm more sensitive to sounds, my sense of balance and the beauty all around me. A lot of my creativity comes from this nearly insane obsession. Something sparkles in my mind, and then nothing else in life matters.
I just love any place that I can sit in the sun and feel the warmth of the sun's rays, and feel the connection to the planet, really tapping into how small I am and really how insignificant I am in comparison to the universe.
Everybody kind of fantasizes about it, flying.
My fear is with the onset of mainstream interest in extreme sports that diversity will be subdued and eventually snubbed out within our great outdoor community. Shouldn't we question when the leaders of our community try to manipulate our culture into a mono crop?
The attractive thing about rock climbing: There are no rules.
Wingsuit BASE jumping feels safe to me.
Whatever I do, I long to be untethered and free.
The wingsuit is basically the flying squirrel suit.
Many of my hardest climbs were done with one or both feet barefoot.
I want to fly for the rest of a very long life.
My parents didn't want to believe their son was 200 feet up, free-soloing. They liked to go on long walks and runs, and they would go right by Joe English. Later they'd say, 'Hey, we saw someone climbing up there.' They would describe what they saw, and I'd be wearing the exact same outfit. And I'd say, 'Oh... Nope, wasn't me!'
My feet look like hooves-like, fake-leather bottoms and funky toenails - and I scrub them with a big stiff-bristled nylon brush you'd use for scrubbing the side of your house.
For two summers, I lived up on the Eiger for close to 40 days. It was in a tent under this overhang near the start of Deep Blue Sea. I would drink the water that dripped from the ceiling.
I practice the art of no rules.
Climbing for me is about being free. It's just to move and be uninhibited and feel and tap into the connection with nature.
I grew up in the 1970s. It was a super open-minded time. I was taught through my parents and TV that everything was possible. You'd see cartoons where superheroes would fly. I always wanted to do these things.
There are many people who parachute and many people who climb. I'm the only person who does both.
'The Man Who Can Fly' captures my quest for true human flight. This pursuit of the unknown and following dreams that may or may not be attained are the most important principles we portray in the National Geographic Special.
In most every other country, 'body flying' more commonly known as BASE jumping is legal and looked upon as a beautiful art. Here in the United States, those of us who pursue human flight are treated as criminals and are forced to travel abroad to seek one of man's most fundamental desires, to fly free.
On the highline my thoughts are simple and clear. Fundamental needs shine through the mental clutter. I focus completely on my breath, my connection with the line, and making it safely to the other side.
I'm more proud of how many times I haven't jumped than how many times I have jumped. Sometimes walking down, I've saved my life.
I've never had a close call.
This concept of turning dying into flying is a metaphor for my basic life principle.
I'm so in tune with rocks and nature. On any rock around the world, if I hurt the rock, I feel like I'm hurting myself.
My views are not concrete. I'm open to change.
When I was a little boy, my first memory was a flying dream. In my dream, I flew - and I also fell. I always wondered as I got older if it was some premonition of me falling to my death.
I started free-soloing harder and harder routes, kind of proving to myself that I could take control of this, pretty much the biggest fear I had - falling to my death.
I know it's insane to think that I could fly. But to make it possible, you truly have to believe in it - to go to a place that's not accepted.
People think that in order for nature to be sacred, you have to separate yourself from it.
I don't have thoughts of an afterlife. I think dying is like when you swat a fly - it's over.
When I go out there untethered, the feelings that I slip I die totally overwhelms me. I am after the feeling of total control. I'm after that in all of life, and for now that's how I find it.
I've always been somewhat of a loner. I seem to take more alone time that the average person.
I've just always been terrified of having to speak in front of people. When I used to go in school and then I had to do a report in front of the class and speak, I would freeze up, sometimes I would even like tear up almost and start crying and stuff... couldn't deal.
There are probably people who think I'm crazy for doing what I'm doing and they're probably right. Compared to them, compared to the way they think and feel and are so bound by norms then I am crazy, but insane or enlightened, it's all pretty close. I would say it's just how you look at it.
I got Whisper when she was a little puppy and I hated leaving her at home, because I would go on these six-to-eight-hour hikes - I would BASE jump every day, and I'd have to leave her behind.
I had a unique style, I didn't care about how things were done in the past, and I just did what felt natural, 'No Rules' once again.
Lately I think of myself as more bird than human.
I think everybody has a dream of flying at least once in their life. For me, it's been over and over a recurring dream.
Well, I'm a pretty wild guy and I live pretty close to nature - I've often lived in caves or on the edge of cliffs or in forests - so it's just second nature for me to tap into the movings of the weather and the world.
I don't have a lot of pressure on myself to be successful.
I would never make a movie just for the sake of making a movie.
I spend more time with Whisper than I do with anybody else. I chose her when she was three or four days old, I've had her since she was nine weeks. She's a mini Australian cattle dog; cattle dogs need to have a job, and her job is just walking after me.
My whole life I've always innovated the gear to match my pursuits. I've innovated the best climbing gear, the best slacklining gear, and definitely the most advanced BASE jumping gear.
The decision to go into the mountains and hike with your dog, and wingsuit with the dog, can bring catastrophe. These are decisions we make because they fulfill us, but they also have danger.
I don't want to be an athlete so much. I groove more with artists and deep thinkers.
Thirty guys equals five percent die-off among active wingsuit base jumpers. That means there's a flaw in our system and you're an idiot if you think anything else. I'm smart enough to know that five percent means it could be me.
I want to live to be a grandfather, or to be doing this when I'm 80.
We jump every day in Yosemite.