Since 1969 Reinhold Messner has made more than a hundred journeys to the world’s mountains and deserts. He has achieved numerous first ascents, climbed all fourteen 8000 m peaks and the Seven Summits, traversed the Antarctic, the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts and crossed Greenland diagonally. He has also written four dozen books.

In contrast to modern adventurers, Reinhold Messner is less concerned with records than with being exposed to natural landscapes in the raw and making his way with a minimum of equipment. He followed Albert Frederick Mummery’s dictum “by fair means” on Nanga Parbat and Fridtjof Nansen’s “call of the North” to the ice packs of the Arctic and crossed the Antarctic via the South Pole on the basis of an idea suggested by Shackleton.

Opposing travelling on foot to the possibilities available in the age of communication, he forgoes the use of expansion bolts, oxygen masks and satellite phones – an anachronism perhaps, but one that preserves an inexhaustible source of experience in the wilderness for future generations.

Reinhold Messner is the father of four children. Between his various travels, Reinhold Messner lives with his wife and children in Meran and at Juval Castle in South Tyrol, where he runs mountain farms, writes and develops museum projects.

As a commentator on television and as a public speaker, he is in great demand worldwide by mountaineers, tourism professionals and business leaders. Following his term as a Member of the European Parliament (1999-2004), Reinhold Messner spent many years building up his Messner Mountain Museums (MMM) and his MMF Foundation, which supports mountain peoples worldwide. Now he is dedicating himself to his new passion, film, as another form of storytelling on the subject of mountains.

Messner has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographic Society for his contribution to mountaineering and mountain areas. This is one of the most prestigious awards approved by the British Monarchy.