Reinhold Messner is arguably the greatest mountaineer of all time. His resume is practically unmatched and his list of achievements is well known. So when the 69-year old alpine legend has something to say, you can bet that the mountaineering community will listen. Recently, Stefan Nestler caught up with Messner in Cologne, where he was able to ask him some interesting questions. The result was a brief, but quite revealing, interview on a host of subjects.

In the article Messner talks about the aftermath of the massacre in Nanga Parbat Base Camp this past summer and its impact for future expeditions to that mountain. He also touched on Nepal's plans to set up a government outpost in Everest BC to keep an eye on the teams there each spring. He even weighs in on Ueli Steck's recent solo summit of Annapurna, calling it "typically Ueli Steck."

While the interview isn't particularly long, there is a lot of information to be gleaned from it. Messner even addresses some questions regarding Ueli's lack of evidence for a successful summit on Annapurna. As you may recall, he dropped his camera on the way to the top and doesn't carry a GPS with him, so there is no real evidence to support his claims of a solo summit. But, considering this is Ueli Steck we're talking about, most everyone accepts that he managed to top out, including Messner. Apparently there are some rivals back in Switzerland that have been raising doubts about the climb. It should be noted that Ueli's teammates on Annapurna claimed that they could see his footsteps leading to the summit when they surveyed the mountain through a spotting scope in ABC.

Tip of the hat goes out to Stefan for this excellent interview that covers so much ground. Really interesting stuff out of Messner as usual.

The third part of Ueli Steck's interview with EpicTV was posted earlier this week, bringing an end to this very interesting and engaging series. In this latest episode he touches on Annapurna a bit but it is more focused on Everest and the experience he had there this past spring when his team had a violent clash with Sherpas. As always, it is interesting to get Ueli's take on the mountaineering world and he offers good insights once again. If you missed the firs two parts of the interview you can watch them here and here.

Recently our friends at EpicTV caught up with Ueli Steck and had a chance to sit down with him to talk about his amazing solo summit of Annapurna. Last week part 1 of the video interview was released and today we get part 2. This time out we get to hear Ueli, who is for my money the best alpinist in the world today, talk about how easy it is to solo big mountains. I imagine this is the same way that Michael Jordan thought it was easy to score points in a basketball game. It just comes so naturally to them that they don't even consider that us mere mortals have a hard time comprehending how they can accomplish the things they do.

There is no question that Ueli Steck's solo ascent of Annapurna is the boldest climb of the year. News of his amazing feat has captivated the mountaineering community for the past few weeks as we've all waited to hear more about the expedition. Now that he is back home, Ueli sat down with the folks from EpicTV for an interview to discuss his latest adventure in the Himalaya. Part 1 of that interview can be found below, where you'll learn – amongst other things – that Steck feels a bit "empty" following his return from Annapurna.