Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin (born October 12, 1973) is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, film director, and author.
As a mountain athlete, Chin has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years. His travels have taken him to all seven continents and he has led and participated in expeditions around the world, building a resume of historic climbing and ski mountaineering achievements. In 2006 he 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.As an artist, Chin's work documenting expeditions and climbs from the Sahara to the Himalaya has been featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic, 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.
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 dollars 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. Chin and Vasarhelyi are currently working on their first scripted feature, Nyad, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster about Diana Nyad's historic swim from Cuba to Florida.Chin has creative directed and directed commercial work for brands including Ford Motor Company, Apple, Bose, Chase Bank, Panerai, Yeti, and The North Face.
Chin lives in Jackson, Wyoming, with his wife, filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi, their daughter, Marina, and son, James.