Jimmy Chin (born October 12, 1973)[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
Chin's work documenting expeditions and climbs has been featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic,[4]The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Outside magazine and others. 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.
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[11] 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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
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.[12]
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 spent 19 days on the wall but were forced to turn back just 100 meters short of the summit.[13]
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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
In April 2011, Chin survived a class-4 avalanche in the Grand Tetons, his home mountain range.[14]
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. They had tried the same climb in 2008, but were forced to turn around 100m from the summit.[15] His film of the climb, Meru, was released in theaters in 2015.[16]
In 2020, Chin, Anker, Jim Morrison, and Hilaree Nelson climbed and skied Mount Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, in a one-day push. The team spent less than 48 hours at the mountain. They then attempted to climb and ski the French Route on Mount Tyree, the second-highest peak in Antarctica but turned around due to avalanche danger.[citation needed]
The Finding of Andrew Irvine's Remains
In 2024, Chin led an expedition which recovered a boot and sock on Rongbuk Glacier. The sock was embroidered with 'A.C. Irvine' and is believed to be Andrew Irvine's. Per Chin, it is suspected the remains had melted out of the glacier about a week prior to discovery. Due to the presence of scavenging birds, Chin and his team removed the foot and turned it over to the China Tibet Mountaineering Association, the governmental agency which oversees the North Side of Mount Everest.[17]
Filmmaking career
Chin began filming in 2003 under the mentorship of Rick Ridgeway. He was a cinematographer for the National Geographic television special Deadly Fashion. He later worked with David Breashears, shooting Ed Viesturs climbing to the summit of Mount Everest. He worked as a cinematographer with Chris Malloy of Woodshed films on the feature documentary 180 South.[citation needed]
In 2010, Chin started the commercial production company Camp 4 Collective with Tim Kemple and Renan Ozturk. He sold the company to his partners in 2014.[citation needed]
Alex Honnold and Chin started climbing together in 2009 but it was not until 2015 that Honnold chose Chin and wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi to film his process of climbing up El Capitan.[19]
Chin and Chai's 2021 documentary, The Rescue, chronicles the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, during which twelve boys belonging to an association football team and their assistant coach were rescued from inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand. The film, which premiered in select theaters in October 2021, won the People's Choice Documentary Award at the Toronto International Film Festival[23] and received generally positive reviews.[citation needed]
The 8-part documentary series Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin premiered on Disney Plus on September 7, 2022. Chin and Chai co-directed and produced 2 episodes, while Chin was featured throughout the series.
Chin and Chai's 2023 National Geographic documentary Wild Life follows Kristine Tompkins and Doug Tompkins for decades of their love story, life of entrepreneurial and conservation work, culminating with their visionary effort to create national parks in Chile and Argentina through the largest private land donation in history.[25]
Co-directed with Natalie Hewit, Chin and Chai's 2024 National Geographic documentary, Endurance, tells the story of Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic expedition in the 1910's and the 2022 rediscovery of his ship, which had sunk to the bottom of the Weddell Sea, by the Endurance22 mission.[26] The film includes preserved film footage from the original expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley.[27]
He is a 1996 alumnus of Carleton College,[30][31]
where he received a BA in Asian Studies.[30] He first became involved in climbing while at Carleton.[32] After college, he became a climbing "dirtbag", despite his parents' disapproval. He serendipitously discovered photography when he borrowed his sleeping climbing partner's camera to take a photo. They sold the picture for $500, and this started his photography career.[33][11]
Meru-Sharks Fin, FA of East Face VII 5.10 A4 M7, India
Mt. Everest, South Col Route, Nepal
Ulvetanna, FA of the Anker Chin Route, VII 5.10, A3, Antarctica
Mt. Kinabalu, FA V 5.12 A2, Borneo
Kaga Pomori, FA IV; 5.11R South Face, Mali, Africa
Chiru Mustagh, first ascent Southeast Ridge, 21,000 ft., Xinjiang, China
Free solo of the Grand Traverse, Grand Teton National Park, 12 hours car to car
Tahir Tower, FA VII 5.11 A3, Kondus Valley, Karakoram, Pakistan
15 one day ascents of El Capitan
Native Son, VI 5.9 A4, Pacific Ocean Wall, VI 5.10, A3+
Beatrice Tower, FA VII 5.10+ A3+, Charakusa Valley, Karakoram, Pakistan
Fathi Brakk, FA VI 5.10+ A3 WI4, Charakusa Valley, Karakoram, Pakistan
Ski mountaineering
Mt. Everest, South Pillar Route, first American ski descent
Tai Yang Peak, first ascent and ski descent, Xinjiang, China
Chang Zheng Peak (22,800 ft.), first ski descent, Central Rongbuk, Tibet
25 ski descents of the Grand Teton
First solo winter ski descent of the Grand Teton
Skied the Grand Teton, Middle Teton and South Teton 10 hours car to car
Skied multiple lines off all the primary peaks in the Teton Range including the Newcomb Couloir on the north face of Buck Mountain, the Spooky Face on Nez Perce, the Amore Vida on the South Teton, the Glacier Route on the Middle Teton, the Colvin on Mount Owen, the East Face of Teewinot and the Skillet on Mount Moran among others.
^ abNick Paumgarten (20 July 2015). "Pipsters". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2015-07-24. Retrieved 11 March 2024. Chin, who is forty-one, was born and reared a flatlander, in Mankato, Minnesota, where his parents, Chinese immigrants, worked as librarians.
^Laudato, Anthony (14 Nov 2021). Brenner, Karen (ed.). "Climber-filmmaker Jimmy Chin: Living life on the edge". CBS Sunday Morning. Archived from the original on 2021-11-14. Retrieved 11 March 2024. Chin and Vasarhelyi themselves have two young children, James and Marina.
