Meet Wyoming’s Greatest Daredevil
Can you imagine making a living out of living on the edge? Wyoming Modern Explorers has just released a video of a man who makes a killing, out of risking his life.
Wyoming's Jimmy Chin is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, photographer, and outdoor athlete that cares deeply about wild spaces and he constantly pushes himself to explore deeper into the unknown through his work.
Jimmy is a professional mountain athlete, National Geographic photographer, Academy Award-winning film director, and New York Times Best Selling author.
His life and adventures have even made the cover of National Geographic and other magazines.
He is noted for his mountaineering and skiing achievements as he is for his photography and filmmaking.
He has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years. Not many people can claim they make a living doing that.
In 2006 he achieved the first successful American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest.
As an artist, Jimmy’s work documenting expeditions and climbs from the Sahara to the Himalayas has been featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Outside Magazine, and others.
In 2019, Jimmy 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.
Jimmy co-directs with his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.
Together they directed the documentary Meru, which won numerous awards including the Audience Award at Sundance, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.
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 at the box office.
Jimmy and Chai’s latest documentary, The Rescue, chronicles the daring rescue of 12 boys and their coach from a cave in Thailand.
The Rescue has won numerous awards including the People’s Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival and was also shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Jimmy lives in Jackson, Wyoming, with his wife, filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi, their daughter, Marina, and son, James.