Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin is an accomplished climber, mountaineer, photographer, and filmmaker. He was born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota after his parents had escaped to Taiwan from China and immigrated to the U.S. Jimmy developed his enthusiasm for the outdoors by skiing down local mountains and going on road trips with his parents at a young age. After graduating from college, Jimmy lived from his car so that he could climb the big walls of Yosemite National Park. Incidentally, while he was climbing in Yosemite, Jimmy took a photo of El Capitan with a friend’s camera that later was purchased by an outdoor clothing company, making his debut in the adventure photography industry. Jimmy Chin took on his first major expedition in 1999 in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan. He would establish three first-ascents in that region over several expeditions. After meeting mountaineer Conrad Anker, he went on a National Geographic expedition to document the migration of an endangered antelope species while crossing the Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet unsupported. As his career developed, he would go on to summit all of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen, be on the first American team to ski down Mount Everest, and to accomplish a first ascent of the Shark’s Fin route on Meru in the Himalayas. While he had been filming in the outdoors since 2003, his filmmaking career has recently gained more public exposure with his 2015 film “Meru”, and his 2018 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for the film “Free Solo” (co-directed and co-produced by his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi) featuring professional rock climber Alex Honnold’s ropeless ascent of El Capitan.