Reinhold Messner

Extreme Mountaineer, Adventurer & Author

Reinhold Messner, who was born in South Tyrol in 1944, climbed his first 3000 metre peakwith his father when he was only 5 years old. After studying engineering heworked for a short time as a secondary school teacher before devoting himselfentirely to mountaineering – and became an explorer of limits.

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

In contrast to modern adventurers, Reinhold Messner is less concerned with records thanwith being exposed to natural landscapes in the raw and making his way with aminimum of equipment. He followed Albert Frederick Mummery’s dictum “by fairmeans” on Nanga Parbat and Fridtjof Nansen’s “call of the North” to the icepacks of the Arctic and crossed the Antarctic via the South Pole on the basisof 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 – ananachronism perhaps, but one that preserves an inexhaustible source ofexperience 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 SouthTyrol, 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.

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