You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.

Neil Cannon, 63, April 2

Neil Patrick Cannon was on the cutting-edge of American rock climbing in the 1980s, tackling some of the hardest traditional routes in the US. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Cannon became a climber in his teen years, while at The Lawrenceville School, a prep academy. “He went on a school trip to Yosemite,” said his brother, John, “and the school trip came home, minus Neil.” Aged 14, Cannon had snuck off the bus and decided he would “stay and live in Yosemite.” This didn’t last—he returned to New Jersey and graduated from Lawrenceville in 1978. Shortly after graduation, at age 17, Cannon returned to Yosemite and climbed El Capitan with another 17-year-old, Chris Bellizzi, who he’d met in the Camp 4 parking lot.

Cannon went on to become one of America’s strongest climbers, and was one of the first dozen or so people in the world to redpoint 5.14. But he was no mere dirtbag, either. On his mathematics SAT, Cannon netted an 800, a rare perfect score, and balanced stiff climbing with an ambitious and successful professional career. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Dartmouth College (1982, 1985), where he became close friends with portaledge pioneer John Middendorf, who also passed this year. He also co-founded and sold several successful tech companies throughout his life. At the time of his death, he was CEO of LEDdynamics in Vermont. Despite his impressive professional life, his brother said Neil never “fit in well in corporate America,” and was better characterized by his dauntless ambition in the outdoors.

Cannon was particularly well known for early hard trad routes in New Hampshire in the 1980s. Among others, he made the first free ascents of Cathedral Ledge trad routes Wildabeast (5.11d) with Dave Rose and Jim Surrette, Reconciliation (5.12 R), and The Wez (5.12) with Russ Clune, all in 1984. He also made the second ascent of Little Cottonwood Canyon’s iconic Fallen Arches (5.13a trad), and the first ascent of the 800-foot Hyperspace (5.11a) on the Snow Creek Wall in Leavenworth, Washington.

Cannon was a frequent partner and close friend of double-amputee and prosthetic pioneer Hugh Herr. The pair collaborated on a number of trad first ascents, such as Fortitude (5.12b) at Cathedral Ledge and the spectacular crack Only on Earth (5.11d) at Chattanooga’s T-Wall. Cannon narrowly escaped death on Canada’s Mount Kitchener (11,499ft) in 1982, after an avalanche caught him and partner Ted Johnson—another Dartmouth alum—while the men were descending. Johnson was killed in the slide.

Peter Cogan, who was Cannon’s roommate when they were freshmen at Dartmouth, recalled his friend as “very smart, and very confident.” Cogan said his friend would “disappear” most weekends, offering only that he was “going climbing.” “He had a Toyota pickup, and would sleep in the back. I had no idea where he went or when, and if, he would return,” Cogan said. “I also had no idea that Neil was leading 5.12 [on gear], well before the invention of cams.”

“In some ways, Neil lived his life very privately,” his brother John said, noting that, although he put up a host of hard climbs and had no small number of “epics” in his life, Cannon was understated, and not prone to talking about anything he did. “Neil wasn’t always the most social person,” John joked.

John recalled how, the day after his seminal ascent of Fallen Arches, Cannon decked from 80 feet onto his back, and broke a bunch of ribs. “Neil just dusted himself off and said, ‘Well, I guess that was a mistake,’” John recalled, laughing.

Longtime Rock and Ice and Climbing editor, Alison Osius, who dated Cannon in the early 1980s, described him as a climber who was strong, bold, and prolific in the vertical world, but also deeply intelligent and lighthearted. “He laughed a lot,” she said, “was cheeky and funny, and did good imitations of himself when, for example, he had been afraid on a climb. But he was mostly calm. He placed gear, looked at it, and moved above it.”

One of her favorite memories is from a time Cannon was paid to carry someone’s haul bag to Half Dome. “He came back saying that, as he moved along on the 16-mile round trip hike, he suddenly didn’t care anymore about the crowds and cars and buses in the Valley. He thought, ‘This is so beautiful, everyone should be able to see this.’”

Roommate Cogan added that his late friend seemed to excel at whatever he was doing in life. Cogan remembered how one weekend, Cannon helped him install a slide mount cassette player in his 1979 Toyota Corolla. “I had, and have, no experience in this kind of work,” Cogan said, “and watching Neilo figure this out, while I held the tools, seemed a miracle to me.” For Cogan, Cannon’s “most famous line” was uttered when the two friends were driving back from a ski trip to Boulder in Cannon’s Porsche. “I took out my tupperware lunch, and before I could open it Neil said, ‘No food in the Porsche.’ I mocked him repeatedly about this line over the years.”

“Neilo was his own man, always,” he added. “He was motivated and intense. When I started climbing seriously myself in the early ‘90s, I came to understand just how strong Neilo was as a climber.”

Neil Cannon died on April 2, aged 63, after a long, hard-fought battle with prostate cancer. He was first diagnosed with the disease in his early ‘50s. In addition to his brother, John, he leaves behind a son, Max, two sisters, and several nieces. “Neil had an encyclopedic knowledge of so many things, including business, the environment, and especially cars, a lifelong obsession and love he shared with Max,” reads an obituary written by his sisters, Maeve and Meaghan. “Neil’s love for good coffee was legendary, and he was always ready to make a latte for whoever might be stopping by. He was a devoted and loving father to his son, of whom he could not have been prouder.”

You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.