BRABD THAT MATTER

Fast Company's 2022 Brands That Matter recognizes the best in social sustainability, inclusivity, and fun.

- 

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Jimmy Chin is helping the North Face explore important new terrain: a more diverse outdoors.

IT'S what you might call a quintessential holy shit adventure shot.

Jimmy Chin is standing alone on a narrow wedge of snow-covered rock atop Antarctica's Ulvetanna, a sharp mountain peak with an elevation of more than 9,600 feet. He squints through the damp fog, gloved hands clenching metal pulleys attached to ropes that are tethered to an unseen companion ahead of him, who somehow manages to be holding a camera. Chin is shin-deep in snow, emerging from what looks like the farthest, darkest reaches of the earth. But what stands out most is his bright red, puffy, hooded parka, which bears an unmistakable white logo on the chest and sleeve: the North Face.

Chin, a photographer, and filmmaker in his own right, is known for 2018's Oscar-winning climbing documentary Free Solo, a New York Times best-selling photography book called There and Back, the 2021 feature documentary The Rescue, and the new National Geographic series Edge of the Unknown With Jimmy Chin. Chin has also been a sponsored athlete for the North Face since 2001, after climbing legend and North Face athlete Conrad Anker glimpsed Chin's photos from an expedition to Pakistan's Karakoram mountains. (Anker was the one who took the shot of Chin on Ulvetanna, which Chin posted to Instagram last July.)