Yosemite climber Dean Potter was a legendary figure. New HBO series examines his inner turmoil

Filmmakers Nick Rosen and Peter Mortimer were gathering research on the late Yosemite climbing legend Dean Potter when they uncovered a revelation about the man that defines their new HBO docu-series, "The Dark Wizard."

For most of two decades - from the mid-1990s until he died during a wingsuit BASE jumping crash in 2015 in Yosemite Valley - Potter was a larger-than-life figure in the world of outdoor adventure sports. He completed previously unthinkable big-wall solo-climbs, graced the covers of glossy magazines and earned a coveted sponsorship from apparel company Patagonia - all while exhibiting a countercultural attitude befitting his renegade rock climbing predecessors.

Having filmed his climbing exploits for years, Rosen and Mortimer had been privy to Potter's extreme competitiveness, mood swings and raw emotional outbursts. But it wasn't until a few years ago, once they'd interviewed Potter's closest surviving friends and read his personal journals, that it clicked: one of the greatest modern climbers may have been propelled in part by his personal struggles with mental illness.

The filmmakers intentionally avoid diagnosing Potter, but friends interviewed for the film series describe a man subject to bouts of mania and depression.

"Not only was it something that was holding him back in life and hurting his relationships and hurting him, but it was also driving a lot of his creative and competitive energy," Rosen told the Chronicle.

That's when the filmmakers knew they wanted to tell a story about Potter that ran deeper than just his accomplishments and accolades. The result is an engrossing 4-part series that offers an unsparing examination of one of climbing's most enigmatic and influential figures. The first episode of "The Dark Wizard" airs tonight on HBO.

"He had this influence on adventure climbing and how far you can push it on these big walls, and he inspired a generation of top climbers," Rosen said.

Potter grew up in the Northeast and fell into the dirtbag climbing lifestyle in the 1990s as a young man, eventually finding inspiration, like so many others, in the giant granite walls of Yosemite Valley. What started as a soulful exploration for Potter morphed into a competitive pursuit once he became a sponsored athlete with a reputation to maintain.

The series depicts Potter at peak performance while feeding on extreme stress - threatened by a rival climber or tormented by issues in his personal life. Conflict would bring out a dark and aggressive side of Potter that sometimes fueled his jaw-dropping physical feats.

"For Dean, the mania could become a source of creative power," Brad Lynch, one of Potter's close friends, said during an interview for the series.

Part of his coping involved seeking ever-riskier pursuits - big-wall free-soloing, wingsuit BASE and untethered high-altitude slacklining - that pushed him to the edge of his abilities.

"I started to realize, his only therapy was the death consequence," Lynch said.

In crafting "The Dark Wizard," Rosen and Mortimer, who together have directed dozens of "Reel Rock" climbing films as well as the award-winning 2021 documentary "The Alpinist," drew from about 30-to-50 hours of archival footage of Potter. They wove that with fresh interviews with climbers, filmmakers and Potter's surviving sister, Elizabeth Potter, who provided the climber's journals and is credited as an executive producer on the series.

"I think, for us, this is the biggest, most exciting thing we've done, for sure," Mortimer said.

A notable appearance in the series is Alex Honnold, the famous Yosemite climber known for his ropeless ascent of El Capitan and the resulting Oscar-winning documentary, "Free Solo."

Growing up in the Sacramento area, Honnold watched Potter's early feats playing on VHS loops in his local climbing gym and acknowledges Potter as an inspirational figure. Eventually, Honnold himself ventured to Yosemite to follow in Potter's footsteps, performing audacious climbs while living out of a van.

In building his own reputation, Honnold "obliterates" many of Potter's notable climbing records, San Francisco writer Dan Duane said in an interview for the series. "There's almost a cruelty to it," he said of Honnold's ruthless and systematic approach.

With his measured demeanor and goal-oriented process, Honnold functions as a foil to Potter and his hazardous search for meaning in the mountains. But the film draws a thread through the two climbers and their respective journeys to excellence.

Honnold performed his incredible El Cap free solo two years after Potter's death. In the series, Honnold says if there's one person who could have truly appreciated the historic feat, it would have been Potter.

"I think it would have been amazing to talk to Dean about free soloing El Cap," Honnold said. "More than almost anybody else on Earth, he could appreciate what went into it. I mean, Dean was the first person to think about it seriously, and he showed the rest of us what's possible.

"The climbing world is just not the same without the Dark Wizard."

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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 10:46 AM.