Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin (born c. 1973) is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, skier, film director, and author.

Chin has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years.

From 1999 to 2001, Chin organized climbing expeditions to Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains.

He signed a sponsorship agreement with The North Face in 2001.

In 2002, he was asked to join a National Geographic expedition to make an unsupported crossing of the remote Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet with Galen Rowell, Rick Ridgeway and Conrad Anker.

The expedition was featured in National Geographic's April 2003 issue and documented in Rick Ridgeway's book The Big Open.

In 2003, Chin headed to Everest with Stephen Koch.

They attempted the direct North Face via the Japanese Couloir to the Hornbein Couloir in alpine style (eschewing supplemental oxygen, fixed ropes, and camps).

They were unsuccessful and both were nearly killed in an avalanche.

In May 2004, Chin climbed Everest with David Breashears and Ed Viesturs while filming for Working Title on a feature film project with Stephen Daldry.

Chin later accompanied Ed Viesturs to Annapurna in 2005.

Viesturs successfully climbed Annapurna and finished his quest to climb all of the world's 8000-metre peaks without oxygen.

Chin photographed the expedition and the story was featured in the September 2005 issue of Men's Journal.

In 2006, Chin achieved the first successful American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest with Kit and Rob DesLauriers.

Five years later, Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk captured the first ascent of "Shark's Fin", a granite wall on India's Meru Peak.

Chin's work documenting expeditions and climbs has been featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Outside magazine and others.

In October 2006, he achieved the first successful American ski descent of Mount Everest with Kit DesLauriers and Rob DesLauriers.

They skied from the summit and are the only people to have skied the South Pillar Route on the Lhotse Face.

In May 2007, Chin joined the Altitude Everest Expedition as a climber and expedition photographer in an attempt to retrace George Mallory and Sandy Irvine's fateful last journey up the North Face of Everest.

In 2007, Chin ventured to Borneo with Mark Synnott, Conrad Anker, and Alex Honnold to make the first ascent of a 2,500-foot overhanging alpine big wall at an elevation of 14,000 feet on Mount Kinabalu.

In 2008, Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk made their first attempt on the "Shark's Fin", a 1,500-foot blade of granite leading to the summit of 21,000-foot Meru Central, in India's Garhwal Himalaya range.

They spend 19 days on the wall but are forced to turn back just 100 meters short of the summit.

They had tried the same climb in 2008, but were forced to turn around 100m from the summit.

In 2009, on an expedition to Chad's remote Ennedi Desert, Chin, Alex Honnold, Renan Ozturk, Mark Synott, and James Pearson made numerous first ascents of sandstone towers and arches.

Outside of major Himalayan expeditions, Chin has participated in numerous exploratory climbing and skiing expeditions to Baffin Island, Borneo, Mali, Chad, the Pitcairn Islands, Antarctica, and other remote regions of the planet.

In April 2011, Chin survived a class-4 avalanche in the Grand Tetons, his home mountain range.

In October 2011 Chin, Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk made the first ascent of the Shark's Fin route on Meru Central in the Garhwal Himalayas in India.

His film of the climb, Meru, was released in theaters in 2015.

In 2017, Chin and Anker established a new route on Ulvetanna Peak, called The Wolf's Fang, in Queen Maud Land, in Antarctica.

In 2019, Chin was awarded the National Geographic "Photographer's Photographer Award" by his peers.

His first book of photography documenting his career in the mountains, There and Back, became a New York Times Best Seller in 2021.

Chin co-directs with his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.

Together they directed the documentary Meru, which won numerous awards including the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and Free Solo, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, a BAFTA and seven Primetime Emmys.

Free Solo had the highest-grossing opening weekend in history for a documentary.

The film eventually grossed $29 million in the box office.

Chin and Chai's 2021 documentary, The Rescue, chronicles the Tham Luang cave rescue.

The Rescue won numerous awards, including the People's Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival, and was also shortlisted for an Academy Award.

In 2022, they released their documentary Return to Space about Elon Musk and SpaceX.

Their first scripted feature Nyad, about Diana Nyad's historic swim from Cuba to Florida, starred Annette Bening and Jodie Foster and premiered in 2023.

In 2020, Chin, Anker, Jim Morrison, and Hilaree Nelson climbed and skied Mount Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, in a one-day push.