Colin Monteath is a polar and mountain photographer and writer who lives in Christchurch. From 1973 he worked in Antarctica for 32 seasons, and in 1978 made the first descent into the Inner Crater on Erebus. In 1979 he helped coordinate the recovery work following the Air New Zealand crash. He has made numerous first ascents in the Transantarctic Mountains, and in 1988 became the first New Zealander to reach the highest summit in Antarctica, Vinson Massif. He is the founder of the photography library Hedgehog House New Zealand and the antiquarian polar and mountain bookshop Barking Mad Books. Colin has worked on numerous book projects on the polar regions, including the Reader's Digest Antarctica: Great Stories from the Frozen Continent (1985), Smithsonian Institution Press's Wild Ice: Antarctic Journeys (1990), and Antarctica: Beyond the Southern Ocean (1996).