On the other end of the scale; the Everest Divine Comedy has aired; while justice, money and power came on trial for Piolet d'Or just in time for the Asian awards. Here goes the latest from the world of extreme adventure:

Breaking news: Piotr Pustelnik comes out of retirement - Himalayan Trilogy team for dream ascents It's time for showdown; Piotr Pustelnik is coming out of retirement - in Polish style! The Himalayan Trilogy dream team (Piotr Pustelnik, Piotr Morawski and Peter Hamor) are coming back to Himalayas next spring, and here's their game plan. 2008: The north-west face of Annapurna. 2008: Traverse from G1 to G2 and G3. 2009: All Broad Peaks...and the north-west rigde of Rakaposhi... "Following the climbing spirit and dreams of my mountain guru, Woytek Kurtyka - we want to complete some of his ideas," Piotr told ExplorersWeb.

The show must go on! Tomaz Humar Soloes Annapurna 1? The Slovenian called his outfitter Asian Trekking over his satellite phone from Annapurna. The message; he'd soloed the peak via its South Face on October 28. Interesting to Ueli Steck who tried to solo a new route on Annapurna's South Face earlier this year. If the report is confirmed, this would not only be an incredible feat, but also a s sweet revenge for Tomas, who was criticized for getting himself in trouble on Nanga Parbat in 2005.

Updated Antarctica 2007/08 list of expeditions! Last week the final edition of this season's Antarctica teams went up. There's a big influx of Everest summiteers now headed for the earth's "second pole." More teams than ever go without resupplies, and no kites are reported this season. Many are still guided, possibly due to the lower cost of such a trip. The biggest event is Peter Valusiak's 2800 km solo crossing attempt.

A dark horse in the polar world; Peter is by no means new to polar conditions. The Slovak did a 118 days crossing of the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Canada with a team of Russian explorers in 1988! The expedition received no resupplies - and the only reason they didn't get the first unsupported crossing tag, was due to an emergency evacuation. Peter's current quest goes from Berkner island to McMurdo, via the South Pole, without resupplies.

Not all is gold that glitters? Kairn's interview with Montagne about the future of Piolet d'Or "Climbing competition debates took place already before WWII," Artur Hajzer told ExplorersWeb. Judging climbs should be easy. Climbers do it all the time, when evaluating their next projects. For Piolet d'Or, the situation has gone beyond competition scuffle. Justice, money and power are on trial; rather than alpinism. In July, Kairn.com’s Cedric Larcher went to Montagne Magazine’s editor in chief Philippe Descamps to ask about the past and the future of the magazine's abandoned prize. Just in time for the new awards, ExplorersWeb translated the interview.

Piolet d'Or final: “Slava je kurba” In the first part of the interview, Philippe Descamps told Kairns that GMH has proven incapable of noticing the evolution of high level climbing. The journalist also said that his magazine has made the award evolve, "especially by internationalizing the jury" and that, "some foreigners even told us that the GHM’s departure was good news since the prize wouldn’t risk being too 'French-oriented'." Except the feud was never about the French; and mountaineering is about so much more than looking good while figuring out clever solutions to interesting technical problems, ExWeb wrote. In any case, fresh guidelines are set: "Alpine style, and no unnecessary risk," Montagne's editor said in the interview, adding that the Piolet d'Or winner should be, "a spokesman, not a champion of the world."

Asians? Europeans? Piolet d'Or Seven Continents? Adding a brand new corner to the game plan; a second Golden ice axe prize was set up last year - the Piolet d'Or Asia. The new nominees for the second edition, due to take place in Seol on November 2, were released last week.

Can we trust Thuraya on Everest and in Pakistan? HET special report The SO-2510 has a nice 65,000 color display and an OS used on the Mars Rover. Unfortunately, much of the system is not working. Last week, ExWeb ran testimonies about the serious network issues Thuraya has experienced, without acknowledging them. Climbers complain that Thuraya is neither answering emails or phone calls to customer support. Since the article, some of the issues seem to have been solved, but the question is for how long. HumanEdgeTech's recommendation is to not rely on the system for data at present, and resort to Iridium back-ups whenever possible until further notice.

Mount Avarice - The Everest Divine Comedy It's like a dark comedy. We had just published parts from the Men's Journal article where it was described how soldiers kneeled and took potshots into a crowd of mostly kids on Cho Oyu, only 100 yards away from climbers. Two figures dropped to the snow, two struggled up and staggered on, one tried to crawl but then collapsed. No one said a word, until Luis sent ExWeb a message and Russell Brice stormed down and yelled at him. Just as we had published the heads-up, an email arrived - from the Discovery channel...

Alert to climbers: Hold on to your beer - moderate quake in Kathmandu Ama Dablam and other climbers might want to hold on to their beers at Fire and Ice: A moderate earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale jolted parts of Nepal on Monday afternoon, Indian Times reported.

Kendal Mountain Festival Details for the Film Competition This year, Kendal’s Extreme Film School has been re-named the Adventure Film Academy, and the course tutors are all top professionals who have worked on BAFTA and EMMY winning films, for the BBC and more. Gearing up for November 9-18, the festival shot over the Details for the Film Competition, with a huge number of titles.

Ang Tshering Sherpa back from Everest regulations follow up meeting with CTMA Friday two weeks ago, back from his follow up visit to China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) in Lhasa, Tibet - Ang Tshering reported that issues discussed involved the impact of the Olympic expedition on other climbers; theft and misconduct on the mountain, and the difficulty of managing the yaks.

Ang Tshering also reported that he was elected next president at the UIAA and Union of Asian Alpine Associations (UAAA) general assemblies. Protecting the mountains; encouraging noble and pioneering climbing; and youth mountaineering will be at the top of his agenda as president Ang Tshering said.

In 2008, the Everest Eco-Expedition led by Tshering's son Dawa Steven Sherpa, (Everest Summiteer) will raise awareness about the effects of global warming on glacial melting and the formation of glacial lakes in Nepal.

In the footsteps of David Sharp - to Kili's summit Mary Clare Reinhardt got sucked in to mountain news while following her brother's 2005 Everest dispatches. The next year's stirring events made her write songs related to the mountain. MC recorded the song, posted them together with three other demos on MySpace, and took off for some climbing of her own! Check in for her debrief at ExWeb.

Youth is the time to run a mile to see a fire - iNomad can get you started! The iNOMAD award supports young people (under 30) working on the frontier of environmental, scientific, historical, political, or cultural issues of our time. "Specifically we support their communication objectives – from film to photography, from art to education and from journalism to music," says spokesman Olive Steeds. The winner receives £1000 towards their work, advice and media services in kind from media & communications industry specialists and finally an opportunity to present their project at an event at the Royal Geographic Society.

Expedition gear in wilderness medicine One of the beauties of very remote, unsupported expeditions is the ingenuity they breed. Anything and everything is re-engineered by explorers in urgent situations, often for unexpected solutions. Compare two cases from two different oceans and six years between them; united by one medical problem.

Expedition list correction: Ronnie claims no connection - and it's Filchner An email arrived from one of ExplorersWeb's trusted fact checkers: "Ronne, not 'Ronnie' - Ronnie is the cook at Patriot Hills," it said. ExplorersWeb corrected from "Ronnie-Fleichner Ice Shelf" to "Ronne-Flichner Ice Shelf" with apologies to Ronnie, but that was not the end of it...

ExplorersWeb presents: The "real" Ronnie! It's funny how you can become famous only because someone wrongly names an ice-shelf after you. But that's what ExplorersWeb did to Ronnie and everyone wanted to know who he is. Well, we got an image of the cook at Patriot Hills. He is Norwegian, and reportedly a gun kite-skier!

Ralph Tuijn update: The good thing about getting shipwrecked Wrecked on the Atafu atoll coral reef late August, with most of the navigation and communication gear broke or lost, Ralph fixed what he could and left again for Australia last week. For obvious reasons his dispatches are now illustrated; but Ralph still has a hard time winding down. Locals drank his Vodka and a week out; Ralph also recognized the striped fish which stole his shark bait.

Bhavik update: Party mon! Remember Gandhi? June 14, he finished his 6393 kms (3456 nautical miles) row from Spain to Antigua - beach to beach! It was a new world record. Beaching is possibly the hardest part of an entire ocean row; “There was a number of overwhelming moments during my last few hours at sea,” Bhavik reported and after his first steps on the white sand, Bhavik slept for 18 hours. The next day, he already missed the Ocean. “I'm having very mixed emotions being back on land. I miss the peace and freedom,” he said. That seems to have changed though. The latest dispatch reads, "Hi Everybody, apologies for the silence. I am still in Antigua. Its carnival season here and you can watch us live on antiguacarnival.com. Thanks to all for the messages, I will resume updating the website on daily basis." This was August 6, and that was the last we heard from Gandhi.

Join the masters: Elbrus speed climb images and video up Walls have crumbled and freedom has rung but climbing masters are still bred at Elbrus. The 2007 Elbrus Race organized by Russianclimb.com and Top Sport Travel ended September 12 and now results, new photos, participants' feedback and other information is up about the event. The organizers also published 2 videos on the event - and for a while we thought they’d sent us a link to the wrong clip...

Tomek and Wacek 'wrong-way' voyage update: "Sail without fear brother..." "At least before he went on his 'last cruise,' I had got him away from his sofa," Tomek wrote about his brother, whom he lost to stroke. "He had tasted fresh spiny lobsters, crude oysters and the waves in San Quentin. I feel distinctly that he’s comfortable where he is. He too liked to dream, and when we die, we all go where we imagine we go."

Ladies and Gentlemen this is your Captain speaking... ANI’s clients to the South Pole are all Everest summiteers except for one - who'll ski in circles around them. Norwegian cross-country skier Hans Foss was born in Norway, but lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He's a pilot for American Airlines since seventeen years and based at JFK. So if you fly AA next year and someone with a slight Norwegian accent announces the flight plan - you know that your pilot probably skied to the South Pole!