Everest—The Other Side: An Interview with the Film’s Director and NOLS Alumni Jimmy Chin

Everest—The Other Side is a National Geographic Documentary Film directed and produced by the Academy Award winning husband-and-wife team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. It’s an intimate portrait of elite ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson as they fell in love and pursued the dream of climbing and skiing down the North Face of Everest. The film debuted in September 2026. It is scheduled to be theatrically released by National Geographic Documentary Films on October 30.

The directing and producing duo of Chai and Jimmy are the force behind Free Solo, the film that profiled Alex Honnold’s 2017 free solo climb of El Capitan.

Here, Jimmy Chin, NOLS grad and former instructor, shares his thoughts with us about the making of Everest—The Other Side.

How did you and Chai Vasarhelyi balance honoring Jim and Hilaree’s intimate emotional journey with the technical demands of filming ski mountaineering in high-altitude zones?

The directive to the production team on Everest—The Other Side was the same one I also shared with my team on Free Solo. We are Jim and Hilaree’s friends and support team first, climbers/mountaineers second, filmmakers third. We used this list of priorities to guide our decisions around the filmmaking particularly on the mountain. The film’s needs could never supersede the needs of Jim or the climb. We also built a team of world class climbers and cinematographers for the job. On the mountain, everyone had to check the boxes as climbers first, most notably safety, and maintain the highest levels of situational awareness around the conditions, weather, terrain before they thought about filming and getting the shot. 

How does your processing of risk management shift when you transition from being the athlete to the director?

For me, on the mountain or planning for the climb, they are one and the same. I have to assess all the potential risks, what we are doing to mitigate them, what our protocols will be for worst case scenarios and what our Plan B, C, and D are going to be if we run into any problems. It’s a dynamic environment to be filming in and we always have to be adaptable.

How did your time as an instructor for NOLS shape the framework for how you handle group dynamics, objective hazards, and split-second safety calls when directing in high-risk environments?

Teaching leadership and expedition behavior at NOLS shaped my outlook on building teams, leading teams, and best practices for working with people both in high risk environments and in high stakes situations. While I was on courses, I got to see what real challenges in group dynamics looked like in real time and real situations. I learned so many lessons I was able to carry with me throughout my career. The principles of the NOLS curriculum are principles you can go back to time and time again. 

Looking back across your career, which achievement demanded the steepest personal learning curve, and how has your definition of “success” changed over time?

My greatest achievement was committing to a life in the mountains. That commitment to be a climber, go on expeditions to push myself, to explore, to learn, opened so many doors for me. It led me to photography which in turn lead to filmmaking and writing. I still have so much more I want to do but I have also come to recognize that fulfillment still comes from the simple things—having precious time with your family and friends, deep relationships, and time in the mountains. As my good friend Yvon Chouinard said in my book Rules To Live By, it’s really easy to complicate your life. It’s much harder to simplify it. 

What criteria do you use today to decide if a line, peak, or film project is worth the inherent hazards? 

It’s always been the same for me: it has to inspire me, move me. For films, I need to feel compelled to tell the story because it says something that connects people, acts as a bridge, expands people’s understanding of the human experience, and creates empathy. 

What core lesson do you hope future mountain storytellers take from your work?

The mountains and what they teach us is important. Our experiences in them can be profound. Take those experiences and what they made you feel and think about and translate them for people who might not get to have those experiences. At the end of the day, my films are about human stories. They may take place in these wild and raw places, but they are about the spectrum of human experiences. They are about our common humanity. Find the common humanity in the stories. People will listen. 

Watch the film’s trailer.