Dean Potter, American slackline walker, crosses China’s Enshi Grand Canyon (VIDEO)
Dean Potter receives his award for World Alternative Sportsman of the Year on May 20, 2003 during the Laureus World Sports Awards held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. Potter just completed a slackline walk across China’s Enshi Grand Canyon.
Dean Potter, a daredevil from New Hampshire, crossed China's Enshi Grand Canyon on a slackline less than an inch thick on Sunday, ABC News reported.
40-year-old Potter balanced his way across 130 feet of gaping canyon in central China's Hubei province without a safety harness or parachute, the Telegraph reported.
The Enshi Grand Canyon is 5,905 feet above sea level, BBC reported, according to Chinese state media. Potter crossed it in just over two minutes.
“In some way, I wonder if it’s healthy what I do,” he said in a February 2012 interview with ABC News’ “Nightline.” “I’m not even trying to say what I do is good. I go back and forth to asking myself those questions. Dean, man, is this healthy? You’re obsessed on this thing that might kill you.”
Slacklining is considered more difficult than tightrope walking, because the line is not held completely taut and is more apt to stretch and bounce, BBC reported. Potter crossed the Canyon while listening to music.
Potter also free climbs, walks highlines, and BASE jumps, all without ropes or a safety harness, ABC News reported.
In 2010, he completed the world's longest recorded BASE jump off of Switzerland's Eiger mountain, floating 9,000 vertical feet and nearly four miles in a specially designed wingsuit, the Sun reported.
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