by Peter Mortimer / www.senderfilms.com BASE Solo Dean Potter has made a „BASE solo“ (or FreeBASE) of Deep Blue Sea (7b+, 300m, Rathmaier-Ruhstaller, 2001) on the west side of the north face of The Eiger, Switzerland. On August 6, Potter free-soloed the gently overhanging limestone route wearing a five pound BASE jumping rig on his back. He traversed into the climb along a natural ledge that comes off the northwest arête of The Eiger and soloed the final 600 foot headwall with 7b+ (5.12+) crux moves at the top of the formation. Dean opted to bypass the lower pitches because they feature loose rock and, should a fall occur, there would not be time to deploy the BASE chute before encountering a 50-foot ledge that protrudes from the bottom of the climb. Below the ledge, the wall falls away for an additional 2,000 feet, leaving open the option of a 15 second flight from higher on the wall. Approximate line of Deep Blue Sea. Dean´s climb was filmed by cinematographer Jim Hurst and photographer/mountain guide Beat Kammerlander. The footage will be featured in the upcoming Sender Films release The Sharp End, and as a feature segment on Jeep´s World of Adventure Sports airing October 11, 2008 on NBC. It may be the first time anyone has set out to free solo a route at the edge of their ability with only a B.A.S.E. parachute. Source: senderfilms.com/blogs Earlier this year Dean Potter made the first Base Line, walking a slackline without a tether with a BASE-jumping parachute as backup, atHell Roaring Canyon, near Moab. You can watch Dean Base Lining in this video at nytimes.com.
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