Jimmy Chin Quotes
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The best alpinists are the ones with the worst memories.
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Mentorship is an incredibly huge responsibility. And you need to choose your mentors carefully, just like mentors choose their apprentices carefully. There has to be trust there, on a very deep level.
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Taoism taught me to focus on the process and not to be attached to preconceived ideas of what I thought the outcome should be.
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The two great risks are risking too much but also risking too little. That's for each person to decide. For me, not risking anything is worse than death. By far.
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Fear is always there; it's a survival instinct. You just need to know how to manage it.
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I've hidden behind the camera my whole life because I much, much, much prefer shooting. Being behind the camera is my safe space, and it's my creative space, too.
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Great images take you on a journey via a single photograph. The depth and layers pull your eye all over the frame, causing you to pick up interesting pieces along the way, ultimately coming to a climax.
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The climbs up the Hand of Fatima, which is 2,000 feet, and Naga Parbat, which is just over 15,000 feet, were spectacular. The Hand of Fatima and the Kaga Tondo, in Mali, is a personal favourite of mine.
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You learn over years of expeditions that having faith, and putting one foot in front of the other, you do end up pulling off climbs that seem completely impossible. There's a certain beauty to that. It has an allure.
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I won't ski in the backcountry the day after a big storm anymore. The mountains are so humbling. As soon as you think you're on top or crushing it, that's when you need to be really careful.
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I really believe that, as human beings, we have an innate need to explore, to see what's around the corner.
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I grew up looking at National Geographic. I always wondered who was taking the photos and how.
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I like to think that images of people doing amazing things may open people's eyes to the human potential, to the idea that people can do the extraordinary when they set their minds to it.
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I discovered and fell in love with skiing long before I started to climb. Skiing was really my first calling. As a kid, I grew up skiing in jeans in Minnesota.
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Meru was the most challenging climb of my life. Not once but twice.
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So many diseases and illnesses have fundamental roots in the lack of clean water. Resolving the clean water crisis would mitigate a lot of problems.
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I feel like I'm doing what I love. If I can get out, shoot, film and climb, and be with my friends and family, I'm happy. It doesn't take a lot. I don't need to climb huge mountains. I have a deep connection with wilderness and the environment, and I'm thankful for that.
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If you want to train for big mountain endeavors, spend time in big mountains.
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You can show up at Everest having never really climbed before, because it's like hiking, basically. You can't show up on Meru and start up the thing unless you have years and years of experience. Climbing and spending time on the mountains is really the only way you can train.
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I used to always judge other people's mistakes in the mountains. I think a bit differently now. Everybody's gotten away with a mistake or poor decision out there at one point or another, but sometimes it catches up to you, or sometimes you're just plain unlucky.
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The way we approached Meru, and the way we approach a lot of these mountains, is with humility. A sense of, 'Is it going to give us passage?' Your mental attitude can affect the outcome.
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There's intense personal gratification in finding a mountain and becoming inspired by the aesthetics of an unclimbed line on that mountain, especially if that line has been tried by a lot of people who couldn't do it, and you get to set yourself up against the history of it.
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A lot of why I climb is for the friendship, the loyalty and trust, the shared experience of being in that moment.
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As a professional climber and photographer, I am asked to shoot in a lot of situations with a lot of different people. Sometimes I'm with the hardest, most seasoned alpinists in the world. Sometimes I'm hanging out with celebrities doing a benefit climb.