Editor’s Note: If you’ve seen someone leap off the summit of Mount Hood and fly, chances are pretty good it was Zach Carbo. Zach is an accomplished skydiver and B.A.S.E. jumper with over 400 jumps from buildings, antennas, bridges, cliffs, dams and nuclear cooling towers. Here are his thoughts on the recent B.A.S.E. jumping deaths of extreme athletes Dean Potter and Graham Hunt.
Over the last several days a lot has been said about Dean Potter and Graham Hunt. Most of what I am about to tell you has probably already been said during this time or over the better part of the last decade. I will not even try to act like I was a good friend of Dean. I was merely a passerby in a few moments of his life. However, I remember those moments like they were yesterday. They have stuck with me and probably will for the remainder of my years. Moments spent with and around him stick with you. That is the force that was Dean Potter. In any event, these are my accounts and my thoughts on Dean and why we, and I, fly.
I met Dean through a mutual friend in the summer of 2008 in the iconic valley of Lauterbunnen, Switzerland. We were all there doing the same thing: B.A.S.E. jumping. Dean was also filming a new version of the sport that he dubbed “Free-B.A.S.E.” — free solo climbing climbing with only a B.A.S.E. rig (single parachute system) as protection in the event of a fall. I had heard of Dean and that he was a world-class climber and a bit of a celebrity. Not being a climber (it scares the living crap out of me), I was not fully aware of the magnitude of his abilities, persona and the legend that was (then, now and forever), Dean S. Potter.
I met Dean like most people who knew him probably have, in the mountains. More specifically at a 580-meter exit point known as The High Nose on the west side of the aforementioned valley. My friend Brendan introduced me to Dean and the three of us made a jump together. The jump was uneventful except for the fact that Dean flew like I had never seen anyone fly before. It was unbelievable. It was amazing. It was Dean. The three of us staged our openings vertically. I opened first, then Brendan, and then, eventually, Dean. Once under a good canopy, I continued to watch Dean fly. Not fall. Fly. I began to panic a bit as he kept flying. Then finally, a canopy, followed by a three-second canopy ride before he touched down, safely. Unbelievable. Once on the ground we all shook hands and went back for another.
Later that night Brendan, Dean and I chatted over beers at The Horner Pub. We shared stories about jumping, climbing and the good times that are our lives. Dean shared with us some of his recent experiences on the Eiger including a jump that he had recently done that only a couple other people knew about. It is what is now known as the Ecstacy Board or Heiger, and at the time it was the biggest B.A.S.E. jump in the world. This was, at the time, HUGE! But really, it was just Dean. This would be the exit point that would give Dean a world record for longest B.A.S.E. jump flight (2 minutes and 50 seconds) and eventually land him National Geographic Adventurer of the Year.
Over the next decade, Dean went on to push himself and the limits of climbing and human flight. I would hear stories of Dean and how he inspired a good friend of mine, Jeff Shapiro, already a long time master of flight with a hang glider, to start B.A.S.E. jumping to experience a different kind of flight as well as the cat and mouse games that were played in the Yosemite valley between Dean and authorities attempting to halt his “rogue” passion of free flight. It is disturbingly ironic that an act of free flight can cost you your freedom in National Parks. In places that are so beautiful and majestic that they take your breath away, flight in its cleanest, most pure forms, is illegal. So why did Dean and Graham do it? Why did they fly? Why do I fly? With a family and friends that love us, why do we choose to take that step into the void of possible death? Because it makes us feel so ALIVE. Our senses and our awareness are heightened, nothing else in the world matters from the point we exit to the point where we touch back down safely. We are free of all of the world’s problems and negativity. It all goes away. Once back on Earth, all of these things are there to greet us and pull us back to “reality.” So we pack our rigs and head back up to be free once again.
Zach Carbo has completed over 1,200 civilian and military freefall parachute jumps and 400 B.A.S.E. jumps. He lives with his family in Tacoma, Washington. You can check out his blog, Living the High Life here.
Here is a video of Zach flying with Dean Potter, followed by a gallery of images showing why B.A.S.E. and wingsuit flyers do what they do, in spite of the risks.
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Last modified: May 21, 2015
