Today’s guest is someone who has quite literally reached the very top of the world. And if his name isn’t immediately familiar to you, I can almost guarantee you’ll know some of his extraordinary work.
Jimmy Chin is one of the world’s most accomplished adventurers. He’s a professional mountaineer, climber, skier, National Geographic photographer and Oscar-winning filmmaker. He’s spent more than two decades exploring some of the most remote and dangerous corners of our planet, achieving feats that most of us could barely begin to imagine.
He’s completed pioneering climbs across the Himalayas and the Karakoram, and his photographs have graced the cover of National Geographic. But it’s perhaps his filmmaking that has brought his extraordinary world to a wider audience. Alongside his wife, Jimmy directed Free Solo, the breathtaking documentary following climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to scale Yosemite’s enormous El Capitan without ropes. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019. Together, they’ve also made the acclaimed documentaries Meru and The Rescue, about the incredible rescue of a boys’ football team from a flooded cave in Thailand.
I met Jimmy in London while he was promoting his latest film, Everest: The Other Side, which is in cinemas now. It tells the deeply moving story of ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson, and their seemingly impossible dream of skiing down the treacherous north face of Mount Everest. It's a film about love, loss, resilience and the lengths to which humans will go in pursuit of a dream.
This interview was recorded during a busy film press junket, so we weren't in our usual studio environment, and the sound quality isn't quite up to our normal standard. But I really didn't want you to miss the opportunity to hear from someone quite so extraordinary.
So, from Yosemite to the Himalayas, let's get started on the travel diaries of Jimmy Chin.
Destination Recap:
Everest: The Other Side, is out now.
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If you’d like to find out who’s joining me next Tuesday, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. I’m @hollyrubenstein and I’d love to hear from you.
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And if you'd like to find out who's joining me next Tuesday, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. I'm @hollyrubenstein on both, and I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you then.
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