Dean Potter, one of the generation’s top rock climbers and charismatic personalities, was one of two men killed in a BASE-jumping accident at Yosemite National Park in California on Saturday.
Potter, 43, and the other man, Graham Hunt, 29, leapt near dusk off Taft Point, a promontory about 3,000 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley, not far from the iconic granite masses of El Capitan and Half Dome. Flying in wingsuits, they tried to clear a notch in the granite cliffs but instead smashed into the rocks in quick succession.
Neither of the men pulled a parachute.