Reinhold Messner was born on the 17th September, 1944, in the Val di Funes valley in South Tyrol. Already as a little five-year-old boy he climbed a 3,000 m high mountain for the first time accompanied by his father. After his studies in Padua, he was a teacher for a short time. Reinhold Messner certainly owes his fame to his great hobby, mountaineering, and his many travels. As a highly gifted mountaineer he has already climbed many peaks, including many first ascents.

All 14 eight-thousanders and the "Seven Summits" are among his excursions. Together with Peter Habeler, for example, he was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest without the aid of bottled oxygen in 1978, and in the same year he was the first to climb an eight-thousand-metre peak alone, the Nanga Parbat. His travels are always a challenge for man and body, as the sole crossing of the Antarctica and Greenland, of Tibet, the Gobi Desert and Taklamakan Desert prove. For four decades, Messner gathered experience at the outermost edges of the earth, which is incorporated into his museum project "Messner Mountain Museum".

It includes a total of six museums: MMM Firmian (office), MMM Corones, MMM Dolomites, MMM Juval, MMM Ripa and MMM Ortles. It is the first, largest and so far only mountain museum in the world. Also as a book author, former member of the European Parliament and for his commitment to sustainable tourism and in eco-political issues, he made his mark. The well-known mountaineer lives between Munich and Juval Castle in the Val Venosta valley, and has four children. Some of them follow in his footsteps: Simon, Layla, Magdalena and Anna Juditha.