The life and legacy of extreme climber and BASE jumper Dean Potter will be explored in a new four-part HBO docuseries airing Tuesday evening.
“The Dark Wizard” is described by Warner Bros. as an “up-close and unflinching portrait” of Potter, who created a name for himself through his infamously treacherous free solo climbs, BASE jumps and highline walks, especially in Yosemite National Park. The series was directed by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen, who also directed the Emmy-winning climbing documentary “The Alpinist.”
Potter became a fixture in Yosemite’s climbing community in the 1990s and soon built a career out of his record-breaking speed-run solo climbs of landmarks like Half Dome and El Capitan. His stunts quickly expanded to highlining — a sport in which he walked on a slackline suspended between cliffs at high altitudes, often without safety gear — and, most notably, BASE jumping. Potter is credited with inventing freeBASE, a sport in which a climber free-solos a dizzyingly high wall while equipped with a parachute, according to Time Magazine.
He was also known for his wingsuit flying, a type of BASE jumping in which webbed wingsuits are worn, allowing jumpers to glide through the air before deploying a parachute. Famously, Potter once BASE jumped in a wingsuit with his dog.
“At his peak, Dean Potter was a figure similar to Alex Honnold—the leading free-soloist in the game,” said Daniel Duane, a San Francisco writer and psychotherapist who was interviewed in “The Dark Wizard.” “But he was also a much more enigmatic and eccentric character than Honnold. It is also true that Potter remains one of the all-time great culture heroes of American rock-climbing.”
Duane knew Potter personally, and he joined him on several climbs when Potter lived in Moab, Utah.
“Potter was a famously difficult guy but I liked him a lot and cared about him even more,” Duane said. “He was capable of great kindness—he wore his heart on his sleeve in a way that resonated with me—and I felt always how hard Potter worked to live a life that felt authentic to him. I had a lot of respect for that.”
Potter died while wingsuit flying in Yosemite in 2015, when he and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, collided with a granite wall at high speeds after BASE jumping from Taft Point. Hunt also died during the tragedy.
“The Dark Wizard” uses interviews, archival footage and Potter’s personal journals to examine the climber’s life and his motivations for taking such extreme risks. It also explores Potter’s rivalry with fellow climber Alex Honnold, who is interviewed in the project. The first episode of the series airs on HBO Tuesday at 6 p.m.