Dean Potter Records Longest BASE Jump Ever

By Rocky Thompson on September 22nd, 2009

In August, Dean Potter dropped 9000 feet out of the Eiger for the longest (almost three minutes) BASE flight ever recorded. Yawn. Not sure how BASE jumping can be boring, but for whatever reason it doesn’t hold much interest for me. I found this year-old story about Potter while looking for more info on his record-setting base jump.

Potter split time between a pub and a cave for a month while waiting for a weather window to FreeBASE the route Deep Blue Sea (5.12+) also of Switzerland’s Eiger. He climbed without ropes but wore a 5lb BASE jumping chute in case he peeled off of the slightly overhanging route. If he fell during the first hundred feet before the chute would have had time to deploy there wouldn’t have been a chance for him. Minor details like this still make Potter the most fascinating climber to read about.

via GetOutdoors

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am and is filed under Climbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Dean Potter Records Longest BASE Jump Ever”

1. Patrick September 22nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm

   “Minor details like this still make Potter the most fascinating climber to read about.”

   Yeah, isn’t it great to read about people so driven to feed their ego that they have to keep attracting attention to themselves with stunts? Potter should have dropped off the radar after his irreverent stunt at arches, but out of morbid fascination, we keep watching.

   No, the climbers who are really fascinating don’t have to make such a big deal about their accomplishments, because they speak for themselves. How ’bout a hurrah for Steve House? He makes potter’s stunts look like just that, stunts.

2. Jack January 29th, 2011 at 2:50 am

   Y’know, maybe there’s a facet of Potter’s mind that craves attention, just like yours, and maybe it needs feeding more regularly, but, uh, maybe he continues to get media attention because he continues to do amazing things. Have you dived off the Eiger? Have you ever made a first attempt at a climb that’s been tried (literally) thousands of times? Doing so is fascinating. Whether a big deal is made about it or not, or rather, whether you WANT it to be a big deal or not, if you attempt to do and accomplish these things, you’re still VERY fascinating, and talented to boot.

   tl;dr - having an ego that needs to be constantly fed does not detract from how fascinating or talented you are. shut the fuck up. bitch.