Extreme free climber Dean Potter dies during BASE jump

Extreme free climber Dean Potter died over the weekend while attempting to jump from Taft Point, a 7,500ft high cliff edge in Yosemite National Park.

Potter, 43, and his friend, Graham Hunt, 29, were killed on Saturday after they attempted a BASE jump.

BASE – an acronym for buildings, antennas, spans and Earth - jumping entails climbers wearing parachutes or wingsuits and leaping from fixed points.

Taft Point is near Half Dome and El Capitan and the pair had attempted to fly clear of a notch of cliffs but collided with them, reported the New York Times.

Yosemite had prohibited BASE jumping in the park but Potter, who lived nearby, was prominent in the local climbing community and had flouted the rules before.

"Dean was part of this community and had such an impact on climbing. He was a luminary and in the pantheon of climbing gods," Yosemite's Park Chief Mike Gauthier told the New York Times.

Potter drew notoriety for his disregard of safety rules and who was known to for line walking without a harness or parachute. In fact, he lost his sponsorship with Clif for his preference for free solo climbing, BASE jumping and slacklining.

“We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go,” Clif Bar said at the time.

He was also criticised in May 2006 after he made a free solo climb - climbing with no ropes except to catch falls - of Utah's iconic Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

However, Potter always defended his actions.

In a 2008 interview with the New York Times, he said: “Part of me says it’s kind of crazy to think you can fly your human body.

“Another part of me thinks all of us have had the dream that we can fly. Why not chase after it? Maybe it brings you to some other tangent. Chasing after the unattainable is the fun part.”

Social media was quick to react to the deaths.

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