In 1991 hikers came across a body of a man partly exposed in the snow at 3,210 m (10, 531 feet) on the border between Italy and Austria. Soon dubbed the Iceman, what made his case so special was that he had lived about 5,300 years ago during the European Copper Age (also called the Late Neolithic or Chalcolithic). Thanks to a remarkable series of factors, his remains had been naturally preserved for millennia, and he is by far the best-preserved mummy of such antiquity. Analyses of his body and of the artifacts found with him have provided an unparalleled glimpse into the life of his time. The Iceman was found at a prominent place on a pass (the locally named Tisenjoch) connecting two main valleys and river systems: the Schnals Valley (Schnalstal or Val Senales) in Italy to the south and the Nieder Valley (Niedertal) in Austria to the north. This region of mountains is called the Ötztal range, and the Iceman (nicknamed Ötzi) turned out to be the highest prehistoric find ever discovered in the Alps. The photos in this album include those taken during three trips to the Iceman's site. I first trekked to it in 2001 from the Austrian side while making a crossing of the pass into Italy. (I have included it in this album because the trek directly crosses through the world familiar to the Iceman.) In 2004 I climbed to the Iceman's site from the Italian side (only to arrive in a blizzard) and investigated other passes in the region, then visited the famed petroglyphs and menhirs in Val Camonica--the latter simlar to those found below the Iceman's site where the Schnals Valley meets the Vinschgau Valley. In 2007 I had the luxury of flying to the site in a helicopter during the making of a documentary film about the Iceman for National Geographic TV. NOTE: Information about an image is available after opening it and clicking on the INFORMATION (i) ICON at the upper right.