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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Yahoo Peter.....
Donini you're an Icon, but your harsh analysis of Dean seems a little over the top. Graham get that boy hooked up with some new, better fitting jeans.
Serious crazy photo, I don't go to the edge w/o a rope. 32 years of cragging and still able to enjoy it when I can get the time, Play safe. There aren't any redo's out there folks.
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TitaniumTendons
Trad climber
LA, CA
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"Bachar and Croft always forgot to bring the camera team along"
I wonder how long the media had to hide in his backyard to get some of these shots . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03udLvtNR6Y
It's funny people get so revved up about this. If he enjoys it, who cares? I think one of the most important elements of climbing is self-confidence- putting yourself into a situation with potentially dangerous consequences because you have confidence in your skills and abilities to handle that situation. The majority of climbers have put themselves into a situation where a single mistake could mean, if not death, than certainly serious injury. Isn't that why so many trad climbers give gym climbers, sport climbers, and boulderers so much sh#t? They've taken away a good portion of the risk and the adventure, which is the whole point for a lot of us. I see this as the same expression of that ideal, just in a different medium.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Mark, I don't think I mentioned Dean specifically. He's a great climber. I'm talking about how anything radical in "extreme sports" seems to always get beaucoup media coverage while most climbing solos are done for personal reasons sans camera . I was on the jury at the last Banff Film Festival. We all got sick of the ski porn shows. Skier after skier after skier flying off of cornices and doing flips or jumping off of cliffs. Great camera action but, after a while, it was like watching someone do pull ups.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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I just hope that DP doesn't try to take over the Extreme Ironing guys.
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apogee
climber
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Beautiful shot, esp. with EC in the background. Unbelievably ballsy, confident, and skilled, and something I will never do.
I just don't get much wood from slacklining, though. Aside from the beautiful backdrops, it just leaves me cold as compared to climbing action (i.e. Mescalito free attempts). Potter inspires me most when he is climbing something on the edge and in good style, and less so when his (or anyone elses) efforts are wrapped up in some woo-woo spiritual stuff while doing something in questionable style (i.e. Delicate Arch).
Slacklining is one of the least interesting aspects of climbing (if one can include it there), in my book. At some point, like Donini said,
"Great camera action but, after a while, it was like watching someone do pull ups."
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fletch lives
Social climber
south lake tahoe
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I guess that he has got to make money somehow. It sure would be sad if he died..
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ryankelly
Trad climber
calistoga, ca
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Nice highline!
That looks like fun!!!!!!!!!!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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When I'd done it fairly steady a decade or so it got both deeply meditative on one hand and fairly boring on the other, then again, I'm pretty ADHD. But the one-dimensionality of it felt very limiting. Given I bounced on mine a lot I thought maybe trampoline would be interesting next step for the 2-dimensionality of the surface you work with. After a few years or so I was juggling / passing pins, working out two-person passing routines, playing guitar on it, jumping between two of them, doing it during 50-60kt gales coming in off Lake Michigan, etc., etc.
I never had any desire or need to push it into the higher mind-f#ck realm, partly because that's pretty much all there is to it - another level of mind control. Nothing really changes about the walking at all; that, and mind control doesn't really appeal to my ADHD / OCD side. In the end I still do it to keep an edge and for meditation, but it just falls short for me on the curiosty front. For awhile when I was younger I did look into bigger wire walks, but then working with a pole makes the walking part mindlessly easy and so dims the whole balancing art thing down to where, again, it's more just a matter of mind control and stamina.
So for me it's been a completely worthy, if somewhat limited, adventure and skill to learn. And while I personally find the folks pushing tricks such as flips to be way more interesting, I still say more power to any folks who take it to the next level of emotional and mental control; just like high-level free soloing, it's a demanding and burly business that attracts a rare breed of cat.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Very impressive. I'm way impressed what we humans can do at times. Dean Potter blows me away for sure. Especially his solo climbing with BASE jump gear. That to me is just a very cool combo. Wow!
I know I will never do such a stunt. I love life, my wife and kids.
Be careful Dean. I would still be impressed if you wore a leash.
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Cpt0bvi0u5
Gym climber
San Diego CA
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Onyx your definitely a Big Man. Even if you win your argument on the internet your still f***ing stupid
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Porkchop_express
Trad climber
the base of the Shawangunk Ridge
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I think the concept of winning and argument on the internet is a fallacy to begin with...
Looks like fun (what DP is doing)...but for all the effort to rig something like that I would rather just keep one strung up somewhere for entertainment and light training than as an end in itself. Unless someone else set one up and invited me to try it and so on...
Inasmuch as it is easy to criticize Dean and those like him, how many of us would really refuse the opportunity to do something like that for a decent paycheck? I would like to say that I could but even if I did turn that down, it wouldn't be without a struggle. Idealism is rarely so black and white.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Dean Potter functions at a level in climbing and I am sure slack lining that very few of us can even imagine. Yeah, he might have blown it with the Delicate Arch stunt, and i'm sure he knows it by now, and the repercussions have not been pleasant. I don't know him but really doubt he did it to be maliscious. I think its time we let the Arch thing go.
Give him a break, one of the best climbers ever, he gets it done.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"how many of us would really refuse the opportunity to do something like that for a decent paycheck?"
Having to do it [for money] and wanting to do it are two vastly different deals and the ability to do such feats on-demand, at a specific, pre-arranged time and place, is what separates the enthralled from professionals. I can't say there are any activities I do that involve risk where I wouldn't want the freedom to just walk away when I arrived on the scene and didn't feel the right vibe - unlike, say a circus performers, motorcycle show jumpers, someone making commitments to others who will show up with media gear, or really anyone who's decided such activities are part of how they will generate income. I decided long, long ago that climbing and like activities were way too personal to me to use them for income, but that's just me, more power to those who choose a different path...
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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I have said this before, and I will say it again..
Why does anyone care what motivates him? It is his own gig. If he is having fun and not hurting anyone, then I don't see what the problem is.
He is morphing climbing/BASE/slacklining all together. I think that it is pretty cool. Climbing and jumping have been together since the early eighties, but not at the same time...
And trying to throw slander at it is silly. BASE always felt a lot like soloing to me. You get totally zoned and the head clears entirely to the moment. Total clarity, however fleeting, is a powerful feeling.
M Herndon
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tinker b
Gym climber
my mom
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amazing.
it is not my style to get out there for a photo shoot, but i like looking at the pretty pictures. it is too bad that there are so many people who are so convinced that what they like and how they do it is how the rest of world should behave. climbers (and slackliners/ basejumpers/ kayakers/ ect...) are individuals. of course we will have different likes and dislikes ways of being. keeping perspective, looking outside our personal bubble is always important, but being ourselves, following our own dreams, and telling our own stories is essential.
i love it when people push the limits of what i have perceived is possible. it expands my reality, and pushes what i can do, regardless of the medium.
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Betelnut
Mountain climber
No. California
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Dumb
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Bullwinkle
Boulder climber
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bachar and croft forgot the camera team? Wrong, or are all of my soloing photos of yabo and bachar and long fake? Oh and what about that great photo of croft soloing the last pitch of the rostrum? Yeah what a bunch of photo whores. DF
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Ditto on the back in the day camera team comment. Somehow I remember Bachar making into national network programs more than once.
And why not? Doing what you love for a living is a pretty seductive goal.
and adrenaline....the most dangerous and addictive drug you can have legally from within.
Same as it ever was,,,but different
Peace
Karl
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Rankin
climber
North Carolina
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What a stupid way to die.
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