outdoor hedonism

編按:在alex honnold 中文版自傳出版之前，據說dean potter 給了他很多啟發，因此引起了我的興趣，於是做了一些念英文的練習（有翻錯請指教>< ），文章標題及內文，大概可知Dean potter是個感性帶點神秘氣息，並探索人類不可知領域潛能的先行者（戶外活動莫不令人感到精神與心靈的雀躍感）


原文引用自:The Wizard - Dean Potter

16-May-2016

By

Duane Raleigh

In memory of Dean S. Potter—fly free.

Dean Potter said he could fly. 

That was 10 years ago. 

Maybe he could fly. 

Who knows? 

大約在十年前，dean曾說過他可以飛，也許他可以，誰知道?

He made so many spacey statements and did so many dreamy things they could seem as natural as a flower opening its petals.

For those 10 years I meant to write a feature profile on Dean. We e-mailed and talked, and one idea was to use a séance as the device for the story. We’d go to a medium in San Francisco (he knew a few) and filter the questions and answers through the spirit world.

"Cool," Dean said, "I'm into it."

他曾提出許多瘋顛的觀點並做過許多夢幻般的事蹟，對他來說似乎如水到渠成般的自然。十年前我想幫他做個人物專訪，透過電郵討論，想出一個降神會的梗來穿插在文章中。於是我們去了舊金山，透過那個靈界釐清一些Q and A 。

Dean：我在其中，很酷吧！

Of course he was.

當然，他做得到。

When Dean was a child living in Israel he fell off the roof of the family house, hitting his head on the patio. Bedouin women rushed to his aid. They chanted a magical song and to cast out evil spirits, tossed salt on his bleeding head. After that, Dean said he lost his fear of heights. In 1993 at Hueco Tanks, a series of visions told him of the innovations and failures he would have in the coming decades. In 2003, when he began skydiving and BASE jumping, he realized that the winged beings that had appeared in his dreams when he was an infant had been teaching him all along how to align his body in the air for flight.

他小時候曾住在以色列，一次從家屋頂掉下來，一頭栽在院子。幾名貝都因婦人趕緊幫他急救，一邊唱著神秘的歌並洒鹽在流血的額頭上以驅走惡靈。那次之後，dean自稱不再有高度恐懼。1993年 Hueco Tanks岩場的見識，預現下個十年他將達成的創新與失敗。2003年開始從事 skydiving and BASE jumping，兒時夢中的肉身飛行景象終於成真了。

He was superstitious, part Schaghticoke (a northeastern tribe), and believed he had joined with the spirit of a dying swift he saw on the floor of the Sotos de las Golondrinas, a pit cave in Mexico so deep a person without a parachute would fall 10 seconds before impact. When Dean, with parachute, had jumped into that hole, his chute famously tangled around a free-hanging rope a photographer had fixed. Dean saved himself by grabbing the line and riding it 300 feet straight down to that dying bird.

Wind blowing the wrong way could spook him.

他有原住民的血統，迷信。站在 the Sotos de las Golondrinas（位於墨西哥的超大型豎穴）的地底看著一隻死去的雨燕，他覺得與這隻隻死去的雨燕有某種神秘的溝通。這個洞深而廣，丟顆石頭十秒才能到地。dean帶著降落傘，縱跳而下，卻缠住攝影家放置的作業固定繩。千鈞一髮之際，他抓住繩子，攀繩而下300呎回到那隻死去的雨燕，並救了自己一命。

風向有差把他嚇到了。

The séance didn’t happen and the years dragged on and Dean might have become frustrated at my inaction. Sometimes, when we spoke, he wouldn’t shut up and sometimes he would hardly say a word. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, being cosmic or avoiding the media. He’d become reticent after his free solo of the Delicate Arch in 2006 when the press, sponsors and nearly everyone had burned him. His ascent of that little span of sandstone, which is to Utah what the Statue of Liberty is to Americans, really chapped a lot of people. It took him years to recover.

之後約好的降神會沒去，dean因為挫折變得意興闌珊，有時說話停不下來，有時卻不發一語。我也無法分辨他是生氣，還是關進自己的世界或是拒絕媒體。2006年他free solo of the Delicate Arch後變得沈默寡言，即使出版商贊助熱盼追著他。完攀這座位於猶他州的砂岩拱門震驚了許多人，他也恢復過往的狀態。

But it wasn’t because of Delicate Arch that the interview didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because I kept waiting for him to do his next bigger thing, the career capper. Since Dean never said what he was up to, it was impossible to know when he had finally done the Big One, something bigger than free soloing Separate Reality five times in a row, bigger than free soloing all but about 100 feet of theNorthwest Face of Half Dome, bigger than wearing a parachute to solo the Alien Roof on the Rostrum and a .12+ on the North Face of the Eiger and inventing FreeBASE along the way. Bigger than, in three weeks, setting the speed solo record for climbing Cerro Torre, and doing the first solo of Super Canaleta on Fitz Roy and establishing, solo, California Roulette (VI 5.10+ WI5). Bigger than climbing El Cap, Half Dome and Watkins in a day. Bigger even, than establishing theNose speed record or the longest wingsuit flight record or walking, untethered, the Lost Arrow slackline or that even crazier one in China.

但delicate arch 的專訪也沒有完成，因為我總覺得Dean會幹出更大條的，我等著他的生涯代表作。他也從不說他下一步的計畫，在無法確認他的計畫的狀況下，他完成了一件件驚人之作:

1。free soloing Separate Reality 

2。 free soloing the Northwest Face of Half Dome

3.穿降落傘solo the Alien Roof on the Rostrum

4.穿降落傘solo 5.12+ on the North Face of the Eiger 最後freeBASE

5.solo Cerro Torre 並創下速度紀錄

6。doing the first solo of Super Canaleta on Fitz Roy

7。 climbing El Cap, Half Dome and Watkins in a day

8。 establishing theNose speed record

9。the longest wingsuit flight record

10。 walking, untethered, the Lost Arrow slackline

Man, how do you go bigger than all that?

Dean practiced a magical realism of his own brand: slacklining, free soloing, BASE jumping and wingsuit flying all bundled into a single life designed to lead him to mastery of the physical and spiritual worlds.

slacklining, free soloing, BASE jumping and wingsuit flying 就像是dean註冊商標，魔術般的神奇由他呈現出。這種神奇表現具有體能上與精神上令人覺得神秘不可解的探索興致。

When he made the first free solo of Heaven, that lofty 5.12d roof in the Valley, it seemed as if he had achieved complete control, and maybe that was the Big Thing, but with Dean how could you ever know?

heaven是一條位於優勝美地峽谷裡，位置很高的經典裂隙傳攀路線（譯註:對於一般人的定義而言）難度5.12d（heaven後來alex honnold也完成了solo 水管找得到），dean完成solo時控制的很好，看來像是完成一件稀鬆平常的事。

Earlier this year he did say that he had “something big in mind. Come to the Valley and you’ll see.”

2015年Dean曾對筆者預告:要在優勝美地做一件想了很久的舉動。

A free solo of Free Rider on El Cap seemed possible. Already he had down soloed the top 600 feet of Lurking Fear then soloed back up the Free Rider exit, a circuit he called Easy Rider. Maybe he would wear a parachute. Or maybe not.

我猜了很多，但也許都不是。

Or, was he really going to fly? It might sound crazy— Dean’s words—but he believed that by studying birds and practicing, he would someday fly and land, unaided. No wingsuit or parachute.

Imagine that. Free soloing El Cap and swooping away like a swallow.

Only Dean could.

他真的會去飛嗎? （應該是指wingsuit）這真的很瘋狂，dean常挂在嘴邊說。但他深信藉著跟鳥學習及練習，有一天他可以飛跟降落，不靠著飛行裝或降落傘。

想像一下， Free soloing El Cap然後像燕子一樣俯衝而下，應該只有他做得到吧。

This article was published in Rock and Ice issue 228 (August 2015), tribute to Dean Potter and Graham Hunt.

註:Potter died in a wingsuit flying accident in Yosemite National Park at 16 may 2015