The Huber brothers have cancelled their planned expedition to Latok I in Pakistan – “because of the political situation in Pakistan”, Alexander and Thomas Huber write on Facebook.  “Of course the dream of this giant wall is still in our mind and we hope next year we will get another chance.” Actually the German climbers and their team comrades Dani Arnold and Mario Walder had their bags packed to start to Pakistan. “But the risk was no more calculable”, says Alexander when I call him. “First the offensive of the Taliban, now the offensive of the Pakistan army in North Waziristan. There will certainly be more terrorist attacks.”

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Nothing can go wrong anymore for Jogi and his boys. Yesterday, just before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Brasil, the German national football team got a motivational training by an extreme athlete at the team base Campo Bahia. Mike Horn reported to national coach Loew and Co. on his adventures at sea, in the ice and on the highest mountains. Then Mike took the footballers along to his 35-meter-long expedition yacht “Pangaea”, showed them some basics of sailing and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean for a short trip.

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The spring season on Mount Everest is over, but not the discussion about what happened at the highest mountain in the world. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has set up a committee to clarify whether, when and how often helicopters were used to airlift team members of the Chinese female climber Wang Jing and the Brazilian-American Cleo Weidlich to Camp 2 at 6400 meters. On 23 May, Wang was the first person who reached the summit of Mount Everest this spring, just before the first successes from the north side were reported. Weidlich originally planned to climb Lhotse, but in her own words she made no real attempt to reach the summit.

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He kept silent for weeks, but now he has found very clear words. “This is my 20th year of operations for Himalayan Experience but never before have I experienced such a variety of emotions as I did this year” writes Russell Brice at the beginning of a five-part series of reports about what happened on and around Mount Everest this spring. At this point I can only sum up the content but you should really take time to read Russell’s first hand reports in its full length. The owner and expedition operator from New Zealand was at Everest Base Camp when the devastating avalanche went down over the Khumbu Icefall and killed 16 Nepalese climbers on 18 April. “It appears that there was already a traffic jam in this area at the time of the avalanche, so it is not surprising that there were so many killed and injured.”

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