The Dark Wizard Breaks Through the Noise

On April 14, HBO released a four-part documentary series titled The Dark Wizard. Although the title is not strictly speaking eponymous, it might as well be—for the latter part of his life, Dean Potter was the Dark Wizard. 

Potter was known for many things: Big, bold risk-taking certainly comes to the fore when considering the full person. As with most interesting humans commanding our attention, there was something more to Potter. To those who knew him best, or were a few degrees separated from Potter’s inner circle, the buzz, when referring to Potter, often pivoted to his mercurial disposition. 

I’d heard from a few friends over the years about run-ins with Potter that were heated and potentially volatile. My sense was that had these interactions occurred in a less public place, they may have come to blows. On the other hand, Potter’s persona, at least the publicly facing one, often projected a more singular human embracing soulfulness.

In short, Potter was a complex human. And these people often make the best subjects.

Over the four episodes of The Dark Wizard, the directors masterfully tease out Potter’s inner dialogue via a thorough examination of his personal journals, candid interviews, and allowing his filmed exploits, often in the form of climbing solos at his grade limit, tenuous (read shaky) slacklines, and exuberant, but so very dicey, BASE jumps and wingsuit flights, to speak for themselves. There is a real sense that Potter was a master of his craft, but he also relied on risk margins that eventually tilted the wrong way. And they did in May of 2015 when Potter died in a wingsuit accident after launching from Yosemite’s Taft Point.

I had heard about the Potter documentary maybe four years ago. As much as I may have been transfixed by Potter’s adventures many, many moons ago, I also, over time, had less space for people, like Potter, intentionally flying too close to the sun. But if age does one thing for you, it can, hopefully, make you more empathetic.

Potter had his proverbial demons. His mental health suffered. His friends, too, suffered at the hands of his single-mindedness. All along, Potter hung on to the notion that his outdoor adventures were an amalgam of athleticism and performance art. It’s a narrative that, at least for me, remains more salient after digesting the documentary. 

(I want to state that I am still unsure about some things regarding Potter. Potter’s ex-wife, Steph Davis, did not participate in the documentary. So the full breadth of Potter’s negative tendencies, for me, remains unsettled. As I noted, Potter is another example of a uniquely complex individual.)

Years ago, Potter threw himself into our collective imaginations. He was all over the adventure-media powerhouses. Like a fine dance, it takes two to Tango. Potter did his part with pre-social-media self-promotion. In turn, the general adventure community glommed onto Potter, velcroing him onto our Walter Mitty daydreams. So before Honnold, who also looms large in this documentary series, there was a larger-than-life Potter.

My only brush with Potter was exactly that. Thirty-four years ago, as a partner and I wended up a Bugaboos climb, Potter free soloed by. He was there. Then he wasn’t. In my imagination, I picture him shirtless, since that’s how he was often filmed in Yosemite Valley. But that seems unlikely. I’d also like to think he greeted us with a friendly “keep it up.” Still, I’m unsure if he said anything at all.  

As I was brought along on this Dean Potter journey via The Dark Wizard, which is decidedly not a hagiography, I found myself in a not-so-unfamiliar mindset. 

A 2002 profile of Potter in Outside Magazine captures part of the tug-of-war that is Potter. Rob Buchanon observes in the piece, “The most remarkable thing about Potter, though, is that behind his formidable drive are two apparently contradictory impulses: an intense competitiveness, which he can sometimes scarcely control, and an innate soulfulness that allows him to find serenity in the middle of the most extreme circumstances.”

The Dark Wizard bridges the gap between those contradictory impulses and offers some insight into Potter’s invasive darkness. In the case of Dean Potter, perhaps his narrative arc ends no other way.

My mindset now, having seen some things in this life and reinforced time and time again in The Dark Wizard, is to be more direct with folks I sense are struggling emotionally or with their mental health, or drugs or alcohol, for that matter. Now, years on, I am more assertive about “checking in.” Because you just never know.