Professional mountain climber Jimmy Chin pushes boundaries in "Edge of the Unknown"
CBSN
Jimmy Chin is usually more comfortable thousands of feet up a rock face or hanging off the end of a rope with a camera in his hand. But when the professional mountain climber talks with CBS News one bright, late summer morning at California's Surf Ranch, his mind is on other things — like the six-foot barrel rolling out for 700 perfect yards across the wave pool.
"It's like a perfect wave, and there's like a really great opportunity of a progression here," he tells CBS Mornings' Lilia Luciano at the man-made wave basin, the brainchild of legendary surfer Kelly Slater.
The wave pool is a marked departure from the mountains and cliff faces that have made Chin one of the most recognizable faces of adventure sports – thanks to his 2019 Oscar-winning documentary "Free Solo," which chronicles climber Alex Honnold's quest to conquer Yosemite's El Capitan without ropes or other climbing aids.
