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Photo by: Dean Fidelman

Last Flight of the Ravens— By James Lucas

“They’re missing.”

Charley Kurlinkus, a BASE jumper and friend of Dean Potter and Graham Hunt, called me with those loaded words at 11 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. At 7:25 p.m., Dean and Graham had jumped from Taft Point, a promontory 3,000 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. They’d been missing for over four hours. I tried to return to sleep, but couldn’t. Charley had also called me the year before. 

I’d been in Zion National Park when Sean “Stanley” Leary was reported missing. I began searching for Stanley the day after Charley called. Less than a day later, Potter flew in from British Columbia, where he’d been wingsuit jumping. He met us at the base of the Third Mary peak, near the ridge where Stanley had crashed. Dean wanted to climb to Stanley’s body, put the body in a haul bag, and carry it down His emotional arrival had caused a groundswell among the other climbers gathered, rallying everyone to action. Dean and Stanley had a “brothers’ bond,” an agreement that in the event of an accident each would find his friend’s body before the authorities. Potter raged up the germanely named Gentleman’s Agreement, an 800-foot 5.13 on the steep south face of the Third Mary. He held Stanley’s body, still wrapped in his wingsuit, while an NPS helicopter flew overhead, performing a reconnaissance flight for the body removal. The next day, with the help of the Zion SAR, we recovered Stanley.

Dean was like that, charging in with emotion then simmering. After Zion, we fought. I’d written an obituary for Stanley for the California climbing gyms that was picked up by Alpinist. Dean contacted me.

“I haven't read your obituary but some friends have and they all recommended that I don't look at it,” he wrote, saying it felt "light" and "weak,” and adding: “I left out the really insulting words.”  

Dean contacted the editors at Alpinist and the article was removed. “I think it's important for journalists to understand how meaningful articles, and especially obituaries, are to the community,” Dean told them.

I called Dean, talked about the times Sean and I had climbed together, worked together and hung out. I explained my motivations for writing about Sean and we resolved the issue.

“I am just one guy and speak from the heart,” he said, apologizing. “Thanks for understanding, James. I'm impressed with your composure and insights.”

A month after Zion, I acquired a framed picture of Stanley BASE jumping in Patagonia on El Mocho, and gave the photo to Dean. He was again appreciative, apologetic, nice and fun—Dean at his best. The brooding nature and intensity I had experienced, though, were what earned him the Valley nickname the Dark Wizard. After Stanley’s death, Dean took some time off BASE jumping, but soon returned to his “dark arts.”

“Grahambo” was a lighter spirit. When Stanley crashed, Graham had left a jump site in Los Angeles, and also met us at the base of the Third Mary. A few months later, he and I reminisced about Stanley while engaged in one of the many odd jobs that kept us afloat in the Valley, scrubbing the ketchup slime out of the Yosemite Village garbage cans.

“Stanley was a mentor,” Graham said during our 2 a.m. shift. Graham, Dean and Stanley had often jumped together. Yet Stanley was dead. We scrubbed harder. After Zion, Graham moved into Stanley’s El Portal trailer, caretaking the property. 

Another night when we were supposed to be cleaning, Graham never showed up to work. I was pissed. I figured he’d died BASE jumping. The Curry Village bathroom tile wasn’t going to scrub itself. I cursed him. He showed up the following day, having spent the night at the “John Muir Inn,” the Yosemite jail. Rangers had arrested him while he was packing his chute at Mirror Lake, the landing zone for the Half Dome jump. Graham lamented the temporary loss of his wingsuit and rig. He complained about the rangers. I reminded him that he was the most prolific jumper in Yosemite, and suggested that a night in the jail and dropped charges were a small price to pay for a hundred Yosemite jumps. In my mind I recalled how Tom Robbins wrote in Still Life with Woodpecker, “Unwilling to wait for mankind to improve, the outlaw lives as if that day were here.”  I was happy that a Yosemite brother was there to scrub tile again with me.

“I decided to get a blue heeler and name her Whisper,” Dean said from beneath a tree at the base of the Nose a few years ago.

“But you hadn’t even met her,” I said, laughing at Dean’s impulsive nature. Dean had had an idea, though, and made it happen. Whisper barked a lot, but Dean insisted on the name. He brought her everywhere with him: the base of El Cap, the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria, the headwall of the Salathé. He even BASE jumped with her.

In the last few years, Whisper had become an extension of Dean. She joined Dean and Graham in Yosemite West, where they were clearing trees on Dean’s recently purchased property. He’d been in the Valley sporadically over previous years, but here much more in recent ones, working on a house with his life partner, Jen Rapp. To me, having Potter around the Valley felt reassuring.

I had two quintessentially Dean Potter experiences in the last year.  One evening in Camp 4, Dean offered to climb Freerider a free route up El Capitan, with me, leading the easier pitches so I could be fresh for the difficult climbing.

While I worked on the route, a raven opened my backpack and ate my food while I was climbing, then met me on the summit. I thought of Dean immediately since the Dark Wizard loved these intelligent and mischievous birds. Even though we ultimately didn’t climb together, I was flattered that one of my climbing heroes would offer to help me. He was there in spirit.

When Charley called this year, I knew. Dean and Graham had attempted a difficult BASE jump; it was one they’d done before, but it still required precision to fly through a small notch. Graham jumped first that evening. Dean jumped after him, flying low. Graham turned left and then back right. He missed the notch. He flared and impacted the wall with his chest. Dean cleared the notch but lost altitude and crashed headfirst. They both died on impact. Wind and the close proximity of the men may have caused the crash. Jen, who was at the exit point taking pictures, had watched from above and heard impacts, but hoped that the men had somehow survived.

Two nights after the accident, the Monkeys,  the loose crew of modern-day Yosemite rock climbers, met at Stanley’s trailer in El Portal to remember Graham and Dean. Yosemite locals, BASE jumpers and climbers from around the world gathered. We cooked, ate and drank for the hangover. Some had been to Taft Point that day. Others had gone climbing. Some had cried by the river. We all dealt with the darkness that had swept over Yosemite in the only ways we knew how.

I drove into the Valley floor the next day. My head throbbed. The clouds lifted above El Cap and the ravens returned to the sky. 

James Lucas is a Senior Contributing Editor for Rock and Ice