The Dark Wizard (2026) s01e01 Episode Script

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.
- 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
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
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.
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.
but also some bizarre shit.
If he knew we were
reading these journals,
he would be fucking mortified.
"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.
they're gargantuan.
It's hard to fathom.
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.
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
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 laid it all out
on the most impactful stage
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,
Yeah.
Hold on.
It took a little
encouragement.
Go ahead.
And when
I finally reach the top,
part of me is real excited,
yeah, fuck.
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.
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
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 did party-style ascents
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
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
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.
he came up to me one day.
He goes "Why are you
here in Yosemite?
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
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.
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.
and who he wanted to be.
"I dream of Stephanie.
"I miss her and wonder
how she feels about me.
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.
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
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.
Fuck!
The emotions run super hot.
Stuff with Steph and love,
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,
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,
- nothing to do with it, yeah.
I really don't want
to go there.
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
shoot it over the top
And then from the string,
we're gonna drag the rope up.
We're gonna set up
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."
- 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
A vision of humanity
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
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.
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,
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.
- 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
peaks, valleys, peaks, valleys.
And we started
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.
the mania could be
sort of a source
of creative power.
After the sadness
the ideas would start
maybe a sketch in his journal.
The passion would get fanned
into a fire.
All that angst
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
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
and you're dead.
Right before my solos,
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
Like, yeah, man, he made it.
fucking impressive, Dean.
I was, like, almost faint
before I started.
Yeah,
it looked like you were.
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
just to put that out there.
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."
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
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
that he took the tether off.
Fuck!
Fuck!
Dean was in a bad way.
was the death consequence.
When I'm leashless
I need total concentration,
or I'll die.
Somehow,
it brings my senses
of calmness and clarity.
It's the most powerful feeling
I've ever experienced.
Whoo!
Aah!
Aah!