Original subtitles

When I was a little boy,

my first memory was this dream

of falling.

I always wondered as I got older,

you know, if it was some premonition

of me falling to my death.

But just feel it so strongly,

needing to go towards that unknown and that fear.

And okay.

Yeah, my name is Dean.

- And we first� - My name's Dean Potter.

I never say my name is Dean Potter

'less I'm talking business, and this is to give the folks

a warm feeling about me.

- Okay. - So my name's Dean.

You know, there's this mythology around Dean Potter.

For a long time, I knew Dean

more than anyone else in the world.

And he's still, like, this enigma.

Yeah.

Let's start at the beginning.

I met Dean in the West Texas desert at Hueco Tanks.

It was a hot climbing spot at that time.

People would spend the whole winter

climbing these big boulders.

Right outside the park,

they had this corrugated-steel Quonset hut.

I walked in.

What I noticed first was the smell of the climbers.

There were sleeping bags on the ground,

guys snoring,

and there's one dude with this big, long tent pole

with a tennis ball taped to the end.

When people started to snore,

he would thwack them from across the room, you know.

Bwack.

Thwack.

And I was like, wow,

that's the fucking alpha, I guess.

So I started climbing when I was 17 in New Hampshire.

That year I missed the maximum amount of days

from school and�

and would do anything to go climbing,

taking my parents' car without permission,

you know, wrecking my parents' car

without permission.

He had a little crew.

There was Timmy.

I was this little wiseass from Philly,

utterly in love with the moment.

We were just climbers, dude. It was so easy.

And he had Jim.

We all came from a life that wasn't fulfilling.

Climbing at the time was a way to put together a new reality

of what life was going to be.

For me, it was a counterculture thing.

I'd dropped out of school really early,

and I was playing in bands.

You know, when I found this climbing scene,

I was like, these are my people.

I remember meeting Dean,

and Dean loomed, right?

Very tall, like, 6'6",

intense, sort of in your face.

But, man, he can climb.

Most of us were just, like, having fun,

you know, on the rock.

But Dean was tapping into something very different.

That's it.

Come on.

Nice.

From the beginning, what really set him apart

was his relationship with fear.

He was seeking out these climbs

that were high and scary.

For some reason, Dean loved that feeling

of being up there

really high off the ground without a rope.

Free soloing.

If you fall off, you could die.

But when he got in a dangerous situation,

something in his brain would kick in,

and he could take the fear that he had

and morph it into, like, superhuman strength.

In those early days, it was pure.

He wasn't famous.

He was just discovering the power that he had.

Bring it on back.

Slacklining is like surfing.

You've got to ride this huge wave.

Come on.

Next step was to take it

hundreds of feet off the ground.

With a high line,

you're looking at, will the system catch you?

It was all new.

We didn't have stuff that was built for high lining.

One, two, three, one, two, three.

No one else is really developing the technical side

of high lining,

just me and, you know, my close friends.

And they're not rocket scientists.

Think that'll hold?

System failure.

Trying to walk a high line�

it fucks with your mind so hard.

You're tethered to the line.

But it's terrifying.

You're doing it, Timmy.

My hands are sweating right now thinking about it.

But Dean went so deep into it.

It's all about control�

becoming the master of your mind.

Controlling it.

In a way, Dean's whole life

was about that struggle.

Yeah!

He used to write in journals a lot.

He wrote about everything�

his biggest dreams�

but also some bizarre shit.

If he knew we were reading these journals,

he would be fucking mortified.

"Dean�who the fuck is he?

"I don't even know. Nobody does.

"I hope I don't lose my mind.

"I haven't yet,

but there's always the possibility."

There's so much angst.

He's clearly in pain.

Some people are blessed,

and some people are cursed.

And Dean was both.

He was cursed with a dark side

that sometimes overcame him.

It was always a struggle

with his mind.

Even when I first met him, he would get in his head,

like, really down.

And there would be times we would sit together,

you know, just have, like,

more than a few beers or whatever.

We would literally just sit there and just cry,

like, fucking weep.

Both of us were just, like,

what is it that's fucking stirring the shit in my head?

We talked about everything,

like, deep, dark childhood shit.

Dean had issues with his family,

relationship stuff.

I mean, he was troubled.

And it seemed like climbing

was the only thing

that kind of kept the demons at bay, you know.

I climb to feel the purity of focused mind and body

unhindered by outside thoughts.

Dean spent a lot of years living in a beat-up van,

got by with very little.

The best part of climbing for me

has been developing the close friendships,

being with people that feel the same way I do.

Their soul is in climbing

and living the alternative lifestyle.

Don't have much money

and alls you want to do is climb

and enjoy the beautiful sky

and rock and world around you.

It makes no sense to some.

To us, it's all there is. It's our religion.

I remember the first time going to Yosemite with Dean.

Your face is pressed to the glass,

and you're looking up at the walls.

El Capitan, Half Dome�

they're gargantuan.

It's hard to fathom.

Yosemite�

climbers' Shangri-La.

For generations, climbers had come to the Valley

pushing the limits on these massive walls.

I was writing a book about the history

of Yosemite climbing,

interviewing the old-timers

and trying to build this story of the lineage.

And Dean�I don't even know

if I'd ever heard of him at the time,

but that was about to change.

The Half Dome climb in '99

was Dean's big breakthrough thing.

He was pioneering this entirely new way

of climbing big walls,

Free soloing but with a small section of rope

tied to his back.

This is a 2,500-foot fucking wall.

He would climb ropeless for most of the route.

When it got to the parts that were too sketchy

for him to free solo,

he would use the gear,

you know, place a piece and just yard on it.

He's pulling on gear,

and then he unclips back to free solo.

Suddenly, this guy can just blitz up.

You know, the prior speed ascent on Half Dome

was something like 20 hours.

And Dean did it in 4?

That was the moment I became aware of Dean

as this paradigm-shattering talent

with a totally different way of thinking

about what was possible.

It's in here somewhere.

These are the Masters of Stone.

In our era, the pinnacle of climbing entertainment

was "Masters of Stone."

These classic videos with all the famous climbers,

hair metal.

Some of it was kind of cheesy but�

It was basically climbing porn.

But the guy who made the films, Eric Perlman,

he saw the whole thing in epic terms.

I came out of the Vietnam War generation.

I recognized

there is something intrinsically beautiful

when life is on the line.

In the crucible of adventure sport,

the spirit of man rises to a whole new level.

That's what evolution demands of us.

I had heard about this guy, Dean Potter.

I thought I should reach out to him.

By this time, his reputation had grown,

but he was still, like, the underground dude.

Dean made fun relentlessly of sponsored climbers

shamelessly self-promoting

and bringing, like, capitalist reality

into our sacred climbing.

"I feel that climbers are overly influenced

"with the pursuit of numbers, competition, fame, and status

and have left behind soul."

"Never sacrifice my soul."

But at the same time, he was worried about his future,

and he wasn't going to hold down a regular job.

And I was like, dude,

you can just be a professional climber.

You know, shoot with Eric Perlman,

get some sponsorships, make a living.

Ultimately, I think Dean recognized

that telling a story was part

of a way to be able to do what you love in this life

and get paid for it.

Action.

And he embraced the process of making the movie.

He brought together his development of technique,

his creativity, and boldness�

And laid it all out

on the most impactful stage in all of climbing�

El Capitan.

Timmy doubled in

as an ordinary climber on El Cap.

We came up with this thing.

- Dean would pass me. - Dean goes running past.

What's up, dude? Don't touch me.

"Don't touch me, dude."

And I give this cheeseball reaction.

There was a certain bit of theatricality to this,

Holy shit.

But I had a sense that when people saw

the things he was doing,

they'd think, this guy is superhuman.

As an athlete,

Dean was the most natural performer.

As a speaker, articulator of ideas�

When I reach the top� Yeah.

Hold on.

It took a little encouragement.

Go ahead.

And when I finally reach the top,

part of me is real excited, but the rest of me is just�

yeah, fuck.

- "But most of me"� - But most of me�

Yeah, fuck!

I think at the outset,

he was just trying to stay authentic.

This isn't really like me at all.

It's so different than how you normally talk.

My job was just to coach him.

Here I am, planted on the summit,

my feet firm on the ground

checking the view, and life is good.

Here I am standing on the top with my feet planted,

and life is good.

"Masters of Stone" changed Dean's life.

All of a sudden, he went from being Dean

to being Dean Potter.

He was in magazines, getting sponsorships.

Up until that point, he was all about the counterculture.

Now he's, like, promoting brands and shit.

At first, he didn't want to completely buy it.

For me, the most important gear I have

is something that makes my body run clean and strong.

Odwalla, it gets the job done.

We would give Dean a little bit of a hard time about it.

Like, he's a sole climber,

climbing solely for his sponsors.

Right, like�

Dean started to have a mystique around him.

He was the center of this whole cast

of characters in Yosemite.

I'd just turned 18 when I first showed up in Yosemite.

We were all sort of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys,

and Dean was a huge influence on all of us.

Dean represented what I wanted to be�

a badass, risk taker,

bold, pushing the limits.

I was lucky just to be in that same tribe with him.

We called ourselves the Stone Monkeys,

and we had our own call.

We'd be like�

We did party-style ascents of El Capitan�

A full bar, ounces of weed.

Wake and bake.

Don't tell your mama and papa.

We had this huge bag of mushrooms.

- I'm shaking as well. - I'm fucking terrified.

We're gonna set up a rope jump out of here.

And then we jumped off.

Oh, my God!

Yeah!

Whoa.

Fucking crazy bastards.

Whoo!

El Capitan!

It was just a feral existence.

But this is a national park,

so there was always this, like, battle with the rangers.

They would come through and give us tickets and stuff.

Like, all the rest of us were scared of the rangers.

They all had guns and hats, but Dean was, like, not afraid.

- How are you? - Hi. How are you doing?

- Turn off the camera. - Um, no, thank you.

Yeah, in the past, I have been kind of combative

towards the rangers.

My most fundamental principle is just being free,

and, you know, I think as long as I'm not harming anybody

that I shouldn't be limited.

How come you're pulling me over?

I was just honking at you because you were�

Failure to yield right of way

at that intersection back there.

No, I didn't, sir. That's a lie.

- Okay. - I think you're harassing me.

But, unfortunately, we're so strapped down with rules

that I'm not allowed to be the wild,

natural guy that I think everybody

should be allowed to be.

He was a total iconoclast

and was gonna do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Hey!

Maniac!

And that became part of the myth of Dean Potter.

As it grew and he got more recognition,

he seemed like he was taking himself much more seriously.

He started to believe that he could be the best climber,

the best of all time in Yosemite.

Dean calls, and he's like, "Timmy, I need your help.

"It's time to break the speed record

on the nose of El Cap"�

climbing 3,000 feet

as fast as humanly possible.

It's intense.

You start the clock,

go sprinting up.

Typically, you would take multiple days,

and we're trying to do it in just a few hours.

Dean had a special system.

You're climbing simultaneously,

which makes it even more dangerous.

Once, I fell 100 feet.

I smashed into the wall,

and I'm like, "I'm still alive. How can it be?"

And then Dean yelled, "The system works!

Go, go, go!"

I love the action of speed climbing,

just galloping up the rock.

No rules, whatever it takes.

Just figure it out and go for it.

You know, you break through exhaustion into that flow,

and then all of a sudden, we're standing on top.

And boom.

We broke the record.

"Climbing" magazine put him on the cover.

I was, like, down by the UPC symbol, right?

And immediately, the record was broken by Hans Florine.

Hans Florine was a legendary character

in Yosemite speed climbing,

you know, Mr. El Cap.

All right, Hollywood Hans Florine.

Whoo-hoo.

I'm well-known for climbing El Cap smoking fast.

I come from an athletic, competitive background.

The most exciting competitor, Hans Florine.

I wasn't like Dean and his friends,

cut-off blue jeans.

Like, you know, I'm in Yosemite

because I hate my parents

or because I don't care to do what society says.

I was there because I want to be the best.

Hans had the nose record for 10 years.

When I heard Dean and Timmy broke our record,

I was fucking excited.

There's a race.

Two weeks later, I go get the record back.

I think this record'll last for a good long time.

After that, yeah, I think Dean got caught up

in the competition.

That's when we started to see

this more aggro side of Dean.

He couldn't keep it under control.

So we're going again.

And Dean could be a fucking psycho.

We were doing the nose.

I forgot the gear. I made this mistake.

He's like, "You just fucked us!

We're gonna lose the record, dude."

My second or third speed climb ever was with Dean.

I think I had a cam stuck,

and he just started screaming at me.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

He's all, "We're losing time!"

He was just, like, so intense and so driven,

and sometimes that would kind of spill over

into being a bit of a dickhead.

So Dean and I break the record again

by, like, 40 minutes.

I was like, congratulations, you guys got the record.

That's so awesome.

How did you guys do it?

You know, and I didn't get a word from Dean.

He didn't want to face and talk to me.

Dean and Hans continued dueling

back and forth on the nose.

Racing with Hans, it disgusted me.

He was like this little dog humping my leg.

I hate the fact that he wanted to just, like, piss

on what I was doing.

And I hated the fact

that it brought out the little dog in me

that would do that back.

I forced him to show how competitive he was

and shown too dark a side of him.

Think Hans is going to be psyched to come back?

I don't give a fuck about Hans.

Want me to break your camera, dude?

- Go away. - Sorry.

I was just like, "Man, I can't believe

what came out of me through competition."

I was a real asshole.

So I stopped myself and realized,

that's not who I want to be.

Okay, we got two cameras rolling.

Winky.

Bullwinkle.

Dean Fidelman.

I answer to most of those.

I've been lurking in this valley for a really long time.

Roll camera.

I was part of the Stone Masters,

which was this band of young climbers

that ruled in Yosemite in the '70s.

I grew up with all these extraordinary climbers

and documented them.

We shared this dirt.

And then they left me.

They became captains of industry,

or they died, or they got married,

or they had families, and I had nothing like that.

I stayed.

I never left the dirt.

When I first met Dean� '96, '97�

he came up to me one day.

He goes "Why are you here in Yosemite?

Why are you"�

You know, I go, "I'm an artist. I make art.

"And I'm kind of a fuckup

and, you know, sort of a loser in some ways," you know.

But I'd rather be here and sleep in the meadow

and just, like, make my photographs.

That's what I want to do.

He believed in me

when not a lot of people were believing in me.

Bullwinkle, he's one of the guys I look up to.

The Stone Masters, they did what they wanted

and what was most cool and radical

and felt good to them�

somewhat immune to what society thought.

Dean definitely was driven by his ego,

but who he wanted to be

was not that super-competitive sports bro kind of guy.

He was searching for a deeper connection.

He wanted to be part of nature.

He identified with animals,

especially with ravens.

The raven�it was definitely a big symbol for him.

We spent a lot of time together

making photographs,

talking about art.

Early on, I could see

he was an athlete

and he was an artist.

And he needed to figure out how those two went together.

I look up at the wall or see the space

between formations,

and I kind of get a flash or a picture.

And I want to enter that.

I see myself becoming one

with the beauty and the nature,

and then I live it.

He was definitely�

seeking a spiritual path�

But also wrestling�

with who he was�

and who he wanted to be.

"I dream of Stephanie.

"I miss her and wonder how she feels about me.

My love, my love I long for�" That's terrible.

Dude, so sappy.

And action.

My name is Steph Davis.

I'm 26 years old.

I've been climbing

for almost exactly eight years.

Steph Davis�

She was a really strong climber,

really, really driven.

She was trying to decide whether to be a lawyer

or a professional climber.

Steph did that classic dirtbag thing of, like,

dropping out of law school, living in her van,

and she had become this badass adventurer�

doing huge climbs.

I wrote a story all about how

she was making her life her way.

My profession is fairly vague,

but it involves mostly just climbing a lot.

Not only was she climbing at the highest level,

but she had secured this great sponsorship

with Patagonia.

Let's see.

Have a lot of stripes.

There was really no one else like her

at the time.

Dean and Steph first got together in the early years.

He loved Steph more than I've ever seen love.

In a lot of ways, they seemed made for each other,

these beautiful people,

both top climbers.

But there was this friction between Steph being

a focused professional

and Dean still being a fucking man-child.

They were always a tumultuous pair.

Get it.

They were both very opinionated.

Bullheaded.

These two highly driven people,

the adrenaline runs hot.

You know, with Dean�

Fuck!

The emotions run super hot.

Stuff with Steph and love, that's more powerful than�

than anything.

He always had a really strong fear

of being controlled.

And that made relationships very hard for him.

There were all these cycles of passionate love

and then breakups.

He would become desperate,

almost obsessive.

At one point, he had broken up with Steph.

She went down to Patagonia with another guy.

They did all these fucking hard routes.

Dean was infuriated and jealous.

So he went down there,

and he raged like never before.

All right, here we go.

He was knocking out one outrageous

cutting-edge alpine climb after another,

totally alone.

Oh, fuck, yeah! Whoo, ducky! Whoa!

He then tries to do a first ascent on Fitz Roy,

which is a mixture of rock and ice.

It's 7,000 feet to the summit.

He brought a water bottle empty to save weight

so he can piss in it and then drink that.

- It's just so wrong. - "I'm gonna drink my pee."

You don't have to do that.

He gets to the top, but when he's going down,

he gets smashed by a rock�

I've hurt my head.

Crawls to base camp.

He definitely went beyond some boundaries,

and I think it was all about trying to impress Steph.

Eventually, this tumultuous pair,

they sorted it.

And against all the fucking odds,

they made the decision to get married.

I was one of the best men.

Jim officiated.

I just remember writing something like,

"They kind of deserve each other."

There was kind of an everything-coming-together

quality for Dean.

Dean and Steph had this cute little house

out in Utah, out in Moab.

They had another place in Yosemite,

and now they're both fully sponsored

by Patagonia,

the classiest brand in the game in those years.

At Patagonia, we were climbers

but also misfits and countercultural.

Dean was a brilliant renegade climber,

and he kind delighted in breaking the rules.

And that was a good fit with Patagonia.

I spent 10 years heading up PR at Patagonia.

I remember meeting Dean.

It was in a photo shoot.

And I called my mom, like,

"Mom, I know what star power is now."

He was by far the coolest ambassador.

People just gravitate to him.

Dean and Steph started to become famous

and started to make real money.

Stop that.

Climbing was booming as a sport,

and Dean really, like, rode that wave.

There was something truly unique about Dean's game.

It was as if he was reinventing

what it meant to be a great outdoor athlete.

He was seeing himself in a different light now,

really looking at his thing as performance art.

He wanted to share with the world his artistic vision.

From then on, we filmed everything that Dean did.

Fuck.

He was on fire.

Yeah!

And his sponsors were psyched,

especially Patagonia.

For, like, four years,

Dean and Steph were the poster children

of everything we stood for and everything we did.

There was no one that didn't think

they were going to be with Patagonia forever.

- What am I looking at? - The writing.

"Delicate Arch,

May 2006."

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, dude.

Are you shitting me?

Oh, wait.

You're wanting to talk to me about the Delicate Arch.

I'm not dropping into that

mine hole of bullshit.

I got really no comment.

I mean, I'll comment on it, but I have nothing�

- nothing to do with it, yeah. - Well, okay, but�

I really don't want to go there.

The Delicate Arch�

was toxic.

Ah, shit, you got me talking about it.

This is bad.

Delicate Arch is one of the most iconic

rock formations in the world.

It's on the Utah license plate,

visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Delicate Arch seems almost too fragile to stand.

We knew for climbers,

there was an unwritten rule

that there are certain formations

that you shouldn't be fucking around on.

So we were, like, poking the bear, right?

And Dean being with Steph for so long,

he hadn't pulled one over on the man in a minute.

It was this covert operation,

where we sneak out in the middle of the night.

This is the arrow.

Idea is, we're gonna tie a string to the arrow�

shoot it over the top of the arch�

And then from the string, we're gonna drag the rope up.

We're gonna set up a top rope�

Yeah, let's go.

So that Dean can rehearse this thing before soloing it.

We go up there.

It's got this flat platform on top.

And we just lied there

and looked up at the stars.

I call Timmy.

"I'm on the top of Delicate Arch.

Dean's gonna climb it."

- And Timmy says� - That sounds like a bad idea.

Isn't that on the license plate?

Isn't that called "delicate"?

Dean wanted to shoot this thing right at dawn.

Eric Perlman arrives.

He said, "It's the most beautiful thing

"I've ever tried to do.

You've got to be a part of it."

Aesthetically, it was a classic art piece

on a three-dimensional canvas�

A vision of humanity

moving and flowing�

at one with nature.

As Dean was climbing,

these birds came out.

And they were whirling around.

It was more magical

than any of us could have expected.

For Dean,

the experience was so profound.

He thought it would be one of the most iconic images ever

of climbing.

I remember coming into work,

and our athlete manager at the time

was very excited that Dean Potter

had just climbed Delicate Arch.

She said, "I've called the media,

and Dean gave them the footage."

Initially, no one had any critique about it.

Dean had done another rad feat.

You're watching Fox 13.

It was on the news that night.

A rock climber who made his way

to the top of Delicate Arch�

Dean Potter is a professional climber

for Patagonia.

It's a very difficult climb.

I wouldn't recommend it.

But it wasn't just this puff piece.

They were looking

into regulations possibly being broken.

Potter says he was okay to climb the arch,

but park officials disagree.

The leadership in Arches National Park

got really pissed off.

Immediately, they changed the law.

Potter may be the last person to climb Delicate Arch

'cause the National Park Service

has new rules in effect right now.

And then the shitstorm started.

It was headlining national news.

In the climbing community,

people were pissed.

Dean had provoked new restrictions on climbing

with publicity, with his arrogance,

and his assumption that he could do anything he wanted.

We did not see that coming.

I'm Tim Neville.

I'm a correspondent with "Outside" magazine.

One of the big questions was,

did he damage this hallowed rock formation?

I decided to send a photographer out there to see.

And he found damage�

grooves clearly left by a rope

right where they would have been climbing and filming.

Dean was adamant that that damage was not his.

I respected the rock,

and I left it exactly the way I found it.

Dude, we were not the first ones on top of this thing.

There were already these rope grooves

right where he was gonna climb.

It was like the deep forensics into, like,

the grooves and the stuff, and I was like, oh, my gosh.

This seems a little over the top.

I do remember after the story broke,

I got a one-line�

a two-word email from Dean that said "your scum,"

and "you're" was spelled wrong.

And I was just like, "Okay."

After that piece, this thing snowballed.

People started going after Dean's sponsors.

Suddenly, this became about Patagonia

as a supporter of acts that harm our natural places,

people writing emails, postcards.

"I'll never buy Patagonia again."

And it put Patagonia in a really awkward position.

There was this effort to get Dean to make an apology.

Just apologize, and we could sweep this crap under the rug.

And Dean responded in a Dean way.

The big story in the climbing world these days

involves the famous climber Dean Potter.

Yeah, I was sitting in the room

when he was doing the NPR interview.

I asked him why he decided to climb the Delicate Arch.

He goes, "Winkie, what should I do?

I mean, should I apologize? What do I need to do here?"

And I go, "No, man. Let's just say fuck the man.

"Like, quote some Edward Abbey

"and, like, throw some other shit out there.

Fuck these people, man."

And that was just the wrong thing to do.

You have a sponsor, Patagonia,

who wants you to apologize.

- Can you do that or� - No.

For sure, I do have some regrets.

And I regret the negative press

that has come with my climb of the Delicate Arch.

So it sounds like what you're most sorry about

is the way this has been portrayed in the media.

That's correct.

I think if you just keep it factual

that a man climbed up a rock

and did no environmental harm,

then I don't think that there is anything to be sorry about

other than the negative energy that ensued afterwards.

Basically, I'm so sorry that the general public

has its head up its ass

and doesn't understand what this was all about.

Definitely don't call me

if you got some sort of a media problem.

I'm only going to make things worse.

His livelihood was on the table,

and he still didn't want to say "sorry."

He felt misunderstood in the media world

and betrayed by a lot of people

in the climbing community that came out against him.

It came down to,

are we going to stay associated with this guy?

You know, Dean had made this public claim

that his climb of Delicate Arch was performance art,

that it represented his spiritual connection

to nature.

And I just didn't buy into that.

You know, it was connected to Dean's own self-promotion,

and that made it bullshit.

The decision was made to part ways with Dean.

The fucked thing is,

they severed the relationship with Steph as well.

Steph didn't make this plan,

but they shitcanned them both.

She had known for a while that his sort of provocateur status

was problematic,

and now he destroyed this relationship

that was really important to her.

Steph and Dean sort of started to fracture.

Dean couldn't fucking deal.

He just left.

He left Steph in Moab,

drove to Yosemite.

He needed to be alone.

This was Dean going into dark mode.

Covering his face with a blanket,

sleeping for days.

And a lot of people have equated that

with, like, mental-health issues.

You could call it mental illness.

You could call it the dark side.

But when it arrived,

it was hard to deal with, hard to explain.

Looking back, it's like,

we didn't really talk about mental health,

especially as, like, a man in extreme sports.

You know, you just took that stuff, and you shoved it down.

Dean and I had an understanding.

I had been going through some of the same struggles

that he had been experiencing�

a lot of mood swings�

peaks, valleys, peaks, valleys.

And we started to talk about�

whether it was�

a condition.

When Dean and Steph were solid,

she had encouraged him

to get some mental-health care.

He was given a prescription,

went on medication,

but he was terrified that people would find out

that he was taking this drug.

You know, he threatened me,

like, "I will fucking kill you if you tell anyone."

After the Delicate Arch, he stopped it, cold turkey.

So the highs became higher, and the lows became much lower.

But for Dean�

the mania could be sort of a source

of creative power.

After the sadness and the isolation�

the ideas would start bouncing around�

maybe a sketch in his journal.

The passion would get fanned into a fire.

All that angst and all that anger�

this is where he drew his energy from.

You know, "I'm going to show those motherfuckers.

I'm going to let the fucking beast out."

That's when shit, for me, started to be scary.

So Dean goes on this soloing binge�

Trying to free solo all these routes that are rated 5.12.

Nobody had done that in Yosemite before.

It was balls to the wall.

Solo this thing.

The same day, we're driving to this point,

soloing another thing.

It was this manic energy, you know,

and impulsiveness.

I felt like Dean was free soloing stuff

right at his physical limit.

Like, sticking his neck out there

and just trying to survive.

Whoo!

I'm trying to leave this body's limitations,

trying to go beyond the physical

and not be hindered by this carcass.

The mind can bring you beyond the body,

but it's a super-fine line

between bringing you out of the body

and breaking through to the next level

or bringing you out of the body�

and you're dead.

Right before my solos,

I feel sick to my stomach�

but I have no control.

I'm compelled to do it.

I don't want to live if I can't do it.

And then there's Heaven.

Heaven was at the edge of his abilities.

We knew that he could fall.

You fall off that thing,

you're going for thousands of feet.

He fully said to me, he's like, "If I fucking die,

"get the shot.

"Follow me to the ground. Get the shot."

Fucking dies, like, I'm going to get the shot?

No.

Your body's getting tired.

You're dealing with this knowledge

that one mistake means your life.

But what I've seen is,

when you're in those situations,

you have all this amazing power inside of you,

more power than you can even imagine.

- Whoo! - Yeah!

Whoo!

Yeah!

Yeah!

Whoo!

Everyone's breathing a sigh of relief�

Like, yeah, man, he made it.

Dude� fucking impressive, Dean.

I was, like, almost faint before I started.

Yeah, it looked like you were.

It was just like�

This was the redemption for the Arch.

Unequivocally that's what it was to him.

Cocksuckers.

It was like, fuck you, doubters,

fuck you, sponsors,

fuck the park service.

Nothing was going to hold him back.

Yeah.

And at that point,

he thought that he had the magic cocktail.

Part of me thinks I'm crazy,

but every time you break through a limitation,

it's like, fuck, I can do this.

I can do anything.

He was also smoking a lot of weed�

just to put that out there.

There are a lot of people�

Oh, man, you're eating chips again.

Mm-hmm.

At some point,

Steph called me and said, "Hey, I'm worried about Dean.

"I haven't heard from him. Tell him to call me, please.

I need to talk to him."

He just shut her out.

He was like, "Don't return her calls."

It's good when you were calming stuff down today, man.

It was awesome to have bros that could do that.

She drove to Yosemite to find him.

I don't know what was said, but Katie Arnold,

the journalist, happened to be there.

I was doing a piece about Dean for ESPN.

I get to Yosemite

to find Dean and Steph in the middle

of some kind of really traumatic altercation

and was like, holy shit.

I'm witnessing the end of their marriage.

My understanding is that, you know,

he wore his wedding ring around his neck.

He just pulled it off, tossed it to her, you know.

He's like, "I want freedom.

I want to be free."

You know, Steph�

she's the love of my life,

and I always thought that that was

the most important thing for me, was love.

But I'm uncontrollably drawn away from the thing

I thought I loved the most.

No matter how hard Steph tried

to make their relationship

a place of safety and peace�

Dean didn't want safety.

He was willing to go places

that before were just too frightening.

That's the moment where he's untethered,

literally untethered.

He was pushing the edge

so far out�

that he took the tether off.

Fuck!

Fuck!

Dean was in a bad way.

I started to realize�

His only therapy�

was the death consequence.

When I'm leashless out on the line�

Or on the rock free solo�

I need total concentration,

or I'll die.

Somehow, when my life's on the line�

it brings my senses

to a heightened state�

of calmness and clarity.

It's the most powerful feeling

I've ever experienced.

Whoo!

Aah!

Aah!