Dean Potter

Potter said he would not climb Totem Pole, the spire in Monument Valley that Navajo imbue with religious significance. Delicate Arch, despite its prominence on Utah license plates, did not have the stature of the sacred Arizona tower, he said: "I didn't see a reason why it's wrong, why we shouldn’t mesh with nature." An account said: "At first Potter's handler at Patagonia spread the word of his climb by calling the Salt Lake Tribune. Public outrage was immediate, though, especially in Utah, where many see Delicate Arch as a symbol for the state's wild beauty."

On May 16, 2015, Potter and Graham Hunt died while attempting an illegal proximity wingsuit flight from Taft Point above Yosemite Valley. They had made this flight before, but it "still required precision to make it through a small notch. Hunt hit a side wall. Potter had cleared the notch and then crashed. They both died on impact." Neither of their parachutes had deployed. This was the fifth BASE jumping death in U.S. national parks since January 2014.

In 2014, he released a 22-minute-long film, When Dogs Fly, that chronicled the extreme adventures of his hearing dog, Whisper. The film became a viral phenomenon, but also attracted criticism from animal rights activists.

On August 6, 2008, he completed the first "freebase" ascent of "Deep Blue Sea" on the north face of the Eiger. Potter is credited with the invention of freebasing, a combination of free solo climbing without the assistance of ropes and – potentially – BASE jumping with a parachute rig attached on the climber's back. In the event of a fall, a climber can revert into a base jump and survive.

In July 2006, Potter climbed '"The Reticent Wall", one of the hardest routes on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, in 34 hours and 57 minutes with Ammon McNeely and Ivo Ninov, slashing five days off the existing time. Potter and Sean Leary set a new speed record for climbing up The Nose of El Capitan in November 2010. They ran up the 31-pitch route in 2 hours, 36 minutes, 45 seconds. This was twenty seconds quicker than the existing record, set the previous October by Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine. The record was later surpassed by Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell.

Controversy surrounded Potter after his 2006 climb of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, for which he lost his sponsorship from the Patagonia clothing company. "There wasn't any legal reason for me not to climb it," Potter said of Delicate Arch, despite well-established tradition forbidding climbing named features in the park. This incident resulted in a blanket ban on the activity within Arches National Park. Potter had previously created conflict with Park authorities by slacklining between the Three Gossips.

Dean Spaulding Potter (April 14, 1972 – May 16, 2015) was an American free climber, alpinist, BASE jumper, and highliner. He was noted for hard first ascents, free solo ascents, speed ascents, and enchainments in Yosemite National Park and Patagonia and his death in a wingsuit flying accident in Yosemite National Park.

Dean Potter was born in 1972 to an Army officer in a military hospital at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and grew up in New Hampshire. He taught himself to climb when he was in 10th grade in southern New Hampshire. He attended the University of New Hampshire, where he rowed varsity crew. Potter quit college and pursued his passion for climbing.