Ammon McNeely

Who is Ammon McNeely?

Ammon McNeely is an American rock climber, who holds the most Speed Climbing World Records and First One Day Ascents on El Capitan in Yosemite. Other interests are: BASE jumping, wingsuiting, skydiving, surfing, skateboarding, trail running, mountain biking and snowboarding.

Ammon has been the conductor of many ascents on El Capitan, most of them in a day: Plastic Surgery Disaster, Wall of the Early Morning Light, Atlantic Ocean Wall, and most recent climbing one of the hardest routes on El Capitan, The Reticent Wall along with Dean Potter & Ivo Ninov in 34 hours and 57 minutes, shaving the existing time by more than five days.

He is recognized as having climbed El Capitan by the most number of different routes - 75 times via 61 routes.

McNeely is the first to have climbed all three routes on The Streaked Wall in Zion National Park, ascending all three routes with a First One Day Ascent.

Ammon is also a slackliner and pioneered many highlines throughout the US and has opened up new BASE jumps, as well.

In October of 2013, Ammon nearly lost his foot in a BASE accident in Moab that he described as: "We were with one other jumper who was new, and I voted that Andy goes first, the two new guys go in the middle, and I go last. They had perfect exits, great openings with no wind. I jumped, probably took a tad longer delay than I should have, being it was a new exit with new brake lines, and immediately had a 180-degree opening. I struck the cliff with my left foot and continued rag dolling down the cliff where I finally came to rest on a sloping ledge. I knew I was banged up, but to my utter surprise my foot was flipped on its side looking very similar to a Nalgene bottle with just a sliver of skin keeping it on." The doctors managed to save and reattach his foot, but are waiting to rule out the possibility of infection.