Good prince, bad prince. In recent years, the good prince has been William, the responsible, handsome, self-effacing heir to the throne. The bad prince has been carrot-topped, pot-smoking Harry, partying too hard and wearing Nazi gear on a boozy night out.

Then Harry went to war, and William started tooling around England in his Royal Air Force helicopter, bending military rules by dropping in — literally — at his girlfriend's house and buzzing some of his illustrious family's many properties.

Now it's bad prince, good prince — at least for a while.

William, 25, is seen as pampered and overindulged, and Harry, 23, as a gallant soldier who put his life on the line for queen (in this case, grandma) and country. At least that is the prevailing public view as embarrassed military officials admit they goofed by letting William treat his pricey Chinook like a private toy.

"It shows William in a bad light," said public relations guru Max Clifford. "It's the whole spoiled brat syndrome. If any other young officer in the RAF were to do this, they would probably be kicked out of the forces in two minutes. It basically says all the wrong things. It says because of who I am I can do what I want. That's the sort of message that upsets the British public."

He said William, second in line for the British throne, has damaged his credibility at a time when Harry is enjoying the popularity that came from his deployment on the front lines in Afghanistan, which was cut short after word of his presence in the war zone leaked.

Harry's dogged insistence that he be allowed to go into battle with his mates rather than get a comfy post back home has impressed the British public — and the fact that he looked terrific in uniform did not go unnoticed, at least by female readers of British newspapers, which published hundreds of photos of the soldier-prince.

And William was not helped by the shortage of Chinook helicopters hindering the British war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some acid-tongued commentators pointed out that the Chinooks should be used to support British troops, not to indulge William's "top gun" fantasies.

The role reversal comes after several years in which Harry has at times received harsh criticism while William had been put on something of a pedestal.

This has even applied to the young women in their lives. The press has given William's paramour, the elegant, dark-haired Kate Middleton, rave reviews as a possible future queen, but has been less kind toward Chelsy Davy, the blonde Zimbabwean who is Harry's frequent companion.

There is a tremendous wellspring of affection for both young princes, who suffered the sudden, traumatic loss of their mother, Princess Diana, when they were just boys. But royal watchers fear William may be squandering some of this goodwill with his flyboy antics.

"I just think in a modern monarchy you cannot do this sort of thing and expect to get away with it," said author Robert Jobson, who has written about the royals.

"You have to be accountable. I think William has made a mistake and he should realize it. Harry had been portrayed as a bad boy, as the playboy prince, until he went to war, but now it's William who needs to sharpen up."

William's questionable sorties took place when he was attached to a Chinook squadron as part of his Royal Air Force training. He completed his basic training several weeks ago and received his wings in a ceremony attended by his father, Prince Charles, and his girlfriend.

In addition to landing on Middleton's lawn as she and her parents watched, he used the $20 million helicopter to attend a stag party on the Isle of Wight — picking up Harry on the way — and also flew low over Highgrove, his father's estate, and Sandringham, one of Queen Elizabeth II's country retreats.

The press has been poking fun at William since the flights were revealed, with some columnists quipping that no British girl will be satisfied with a boyfriend who courts her with a bouquet of roses bought at a local gas station when the future king can woo his beloved by landing a Chinook in her garden.

But some military men defended the prince and the instructors who okayed his flight plans.

Charles Heyman, a former officer who edits "The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom," said helicopter pilots have always bent the rules. He said he used to fly with a U.S. airman who used his military helicopter to scour the countryside for vintage cars he could buy for bargain prices. When he saw something he liked, he would swoop down, land and make an offer.

"It's the sort of things helicopter pilots have done forever," Heyman said. "They've landed in their girlfriends' gardens all over the UK and all over the USA. It is illegal by service standards but they can always get away with it. Some people could say it's part of legitimate flight training, but really it's not. You'd have to really stretch to say that."

Still, he said the fact the both young princes are active in the military is important.

"It raises the status of the military and it shows the top people in society are part of it, and that's good for morale," he said.

Now that he has earned his wings, William is expected to receive Royal Navy training. Bahamas-ahoy.

GREGORY KATZ

Tears welled in my eyes twice while hiking some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet - once in mid-wretch gag and once in awe-struck wonder.

They were unexpected bookends for a journey that only vaguely resembled the trip I planned for myself and my hiking partner Ben Yeomans. But that's how adventures often happen in Russia — unexpectedly, with wonder, bewilderment - and occasionally even nausea.

In years past, Ben and I together have climbed, hiked, backpacked and canoed mountaintops, deserts, canyons and wilderness rivers. Never, however, have we traveled through landscapes as severe as the knife edges and wind-swept terrain found along the Russian-Georgian border - the landscape of the Caucasus Mountains.

And never, for that matter, have we opened a trip in a ramshackle hostel, cups of vodka in hand, eyeing with deep suspicion a plate offered as a welcome dish by our Balkar hosts, who are mountain people and sheepherders by tradition.

It was sheep's fat wrapped in sheep's stomach, tied with sinew and boiled until it becomes a gray, wiggly doughnut hole. Vodka washed the first piece down. I wretched at the second and tears poured from my eyes, gag-reflex in full operation, vodka out the nose. Not good.

The Caucasus region is wedged between the Black and Caspian seas with the eponymous mountains climbing skyward in an tectonic crumple. The Balkars are among dozens of ethnic groups living here who have feuded with one another, or their Russian conquerors, for centuries - giving the Caucasus a deserved reputation for persistent violence, particularly in Chechnya and on the Russian side.

Most adventurers who come here head to Mount Elbrus, Europe's highest peak at 18,500 feet. It has year-round snow pack and glaciers that draw skiers, snowboarders and mountaineers, not to mention weekend tourists who take an aging cable car up to the snow fields, snap a few pictures, then descend to spas, bars, discos and hotels in the valley.

We avoided Elbrus, mainly to avoid other people altogether, but also so we that didn't burden ourselves with heavy mountaineering equipment.

Our starting point was the hostel, called Zhilisu, where we arrived in the fog-shrouded dark after a three-hour ride, having climbed up through an abandoned, post-apocalyptic uranium mine in the back of a car that resembled a 1970s van. The Russians call it a jeep and it bravely traverses roads that horses might fear to pass. Out the windows we peered through pea-soup fog and dusk to look hundreds of feet straight down into gullies and ravines. No guardrails, of course.

More than once, we bounced over a ditch and slammed our heads into the car's roof. Our driver smoked incessantly and maneuvered around washouts, while making regular jokes about dying. Later, at our hostel, faced with a second plate of boiled sheep's stomach, I too began to wonder about dying.

The morning after, we left Zhilisu on foot. We explored nearby mineral springs and saw a towering waterfall through jagged cliffs above sending veils of mist into the gorge and the sunlight.

We then climbed southeast past hobbled horses and cows up through a notch toward our first pass — Eldarbashi. The washed-browns and October yellows of the grasses and pastures gave way to fields of broken rock. At the height of the 9,500-foot-high pass, we looked down into the Islamchat river valley, scoured out by erosion that has humbled these mountains for thousands of years. We pitched our tent on a high bluff as the fog dulled the river's echoes and closed us off from the world.

The next day, winds pushed us up to the Kyrtykaush Pass, at 10,600 feet, where we found a metal monument marker from the Communist Party's youth organization, Komsomol, dedicated to native sons of the Caucasus who died in World War II, which Russians call "The Great Patriotic War."

On the downward slopes, a herd of horses eyed us warily, then scrambled higher. At valley's bottom, the braids of the Kyrtyk River carved a wide swath between two lines of peaks stretching up into glacier and sheer rock. Upstream we could see decrepit stone-and-timber sheepherders' camps along with rusting shipping containers marked "CCCP" - Russian for U.S.S.R.. Above us, a figure chased a flock of sheep up over the ridge. With a sweep of the arm, I ran my fingers over the cloud-swept glaciers, down the river valley, through the flood plain and over the pine tree hillside.

We camped along a stone wall, on the south bank of the river, littered with paper birch and aspen leaves that caught the evening sun. The next morning, we were spotted by a cow herder with blackened hands, mud-caked rubber boots and a filthy undershirt. He didn't know what to make of two American backpackers, but he did the neighborly thing for the Balkars: He invited us in for a cup of tea and a smoke of hashish.

We declined. He then gave us a quick tirade on the state of the world. "The Soviet Union; it was a godless country." The bitterness was understandable. Thousands of Balkars were deported from here by Stalin in 1943, accused of collaboration with the Germans.

He said he'd been in the pastures all summer and would stay all winter, occasionally making his way home to the Baksan Valley - just like his grandfather and great-grandfathers did before him.

We followed a road to the valley and met our driver, who took us to the base of a ski area, where we set off for the second part of our journey — this time almost due south to the border with Georgia. In spitting snow and fading light, we hopped on a single-chair lift up the south side of Mount Cherget (11,300 feet) and were met by a border guard - who, like the herder, seemed bemused by our presence but willingly recorded our name and passport numbers.

Later, in the twilight and snow, we pitched our tent on the marshy shores of Lake Donguzorunkel, a basin of brilliant aquamarines, glacial water and minerals fed by two splashing waterfalls. The clack-clack of hail on the tent drowned out our conversation; the rumble of glaciers separating and snow packs collapsing into clouds of white kept us awake.

We had hoped to climb farther to a smaller lake over the next ridge, a half-mile from the border. The guard the previous day had warned that we wouldn't be allowed to because we were foreigners. He was right: Despite offers of gorp, chocolate and a gift of maple syrup, two young guards refused to let us go.

Instead we scrambled down and up and down again over sofa-sized boulders that shifted under foot, over green-gray lichen and through alpine scrub. We passed an old helicopter wreck, "CCCP" stamped on the engine block and doors. And we clamored on tufts of tundra grasses up to a parapet high over the lake, the steep slopes falling away around us.

I stopped and looked out. Below us, the vivid hues of the lake and echo of waterfalls. Above us, serrated, snow-swept crags straining up into the rush of clouds. At their base, wet slides crashing down chutes and gullies into alluvial fans of snow, ice silt and rock.

It felt like we were watching geological time unfold before our eyes, epochs and eons sweeping past like clouds that lick the mountaintops and dissolve.

We were very, very small travelers passing but only briefly through an enormous world of almost unfathomable beauty.

I closed my eyes as tears again welled up.

___

If You Go...

TIPS: Russia's North Caucasus is a volatile, corrupt and mind-boggling place, a mix of mindsets that is one part holdover Soviet bureaucracy, one part clan-driven, xenophobic distrust, one part anti-terrorist police policies. The rewards are immense if you have a thick skin, willingness to grease a palm or two, and the patience to weather capricious bureaucracy.

TIMING: For trekking or hiking, September is the best time to go, after the crowds have gone and the weather is cooler. July and August are peak hiking and climbing months. Be prepared for long lines of tourists if you are climbing Mount Elbrus. For skiing, snowboarding or ice climbing, late winter from February on is ideal.

VISAS: Most foreigners will need a visa, obtained well in advance, to enter Russia, and will need to register with authorities upon arrival and have permits for visiting Mount Elbrus, the park and border area. You may want to consult with a travel agent experienced in Russian travel. U.S. State Department recommendations are at http://travel.state.gov/travel/.

GETTING THERE: Most routes involve flying to Moscow's Sheremyetevo or Domodedevo airports; then to Mineralniye Vodi, the city nearest Elbrus; then a three-hour drive south to the Baksan River, the jumping off point for Elbrus.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

-Mount Elbrus & Caucasus English-language Web site: http://www.elbrus.net/home.htm

-Elbrus National Park administrative offices, ul. Lesnaya, 2 Elbrus Kabardino-Balkariya, phone 011-7-( 866-387-8141

-Guide services based in Russia: Elbrus Navigator, 011-7-866-387-1424 or navi5642(at)yandex.ru or Go-Elbrus Terskol, 011-7-866-387-1335 or http://www.go-elbrus.com.

-Travel agency based in Ireland with experience in travel to Elbrus region: Adventure Alternative, http://www.adventurealternative.com/

MIKE ECKEL

Singer Embraces Moderation, Slimmer Life and Motherhood

Six years after her gastric bypass surgery, singer Carnie Wilson is keeping the weight off, but the desire to eat remains.

For Wilson, the supermarket is a minefield, especially the aisle packed with carbohydrates.

"I salivate. I flip out. Look at the sweet potato pie, strawberry rhubarb," Wilson told "20/20."

When you love food as much as she does, staying healthy is not easy. "I mean, moderation, not deprivation. That's my new way of living," said Wilson. "I always want more, and that's just my life."

Watching Other People Eat

Gastric bypass surgery successfully shrank Wilson's stomach, but it didn't reduce her passion for food. Now she's content to cook for others -- this poster child for gastric bypass surgery has written the cookbook, "To Serve With Love."

The book combines healthy dishes such as poached fish, with sinful items like macaroni and cheese. Click here for the recipe.

"You got the creamy filling inside. There's five cheeses in there," said Wilson. "I love to watch people eat."

It may be delicious, but a dietician told "20/20" the dish is 800 calories per portion. "Before, when I was 300 pounds, I would eat probably three or four times that amount," said Wilson.

Now, she only allows herself to have two bites of the dish at a time.

"One of the greatest pleasures in life is eating. … We need to eat and enjoy it but control it," said Wilson. "That's what I do now."

Learning to Fight Her Obesity

Wilson's healthy approach to eating is a long way from where she was in 1999, when she had her gastric bypass surgery.

At age 31, Wilson was morbidly obese, like 6 million other Americans are today.

She spoke with "20/20" at that time and described how she felt at that weight. "My feet were hurting; I would be tired a lot, I'd feel sluggish. I started getting paranoid … I felt like I was going to have a heart attack," said Wilson.

She was dubbed the "fat one" in the hit singing trio Wilson Phillips and her weight trouble started early on. She says she picked up erratic eating habits from her famously troubled father, Brian Wilson of the '60s pop sensation The Beach Boys.

Wilson described being the "heaviest" one in her school classes. "I would come home and cry and be just devastated, you know, frustrated, and I would eat more," said Wilson.

After years of disastrous dieting she turned to surgery and vowed it was the last time the world would see her so large. The operation reconfigured her digestive tract and reduced her stomach to the size of an egg, it's a procedure that 145,000 Americans had last year.

And for Wilson -- it was a success. She lost 152 pounds, which she describes as half her own weight.

A year after her surgery, Hollywood was buzzing. Carnie Wilson had a new body, new confidence and a new husband, musician Rob Bonfiglio.

While she's still recording music and is a special correspondent on "Entertainment Tonight," now her real focus is gastric bypass education, including appearing as a paid spokeswoman in an infomercial where she proclaims she has a disease and is "not ashamed to admit it."

She considers herself an "unofficial" poster child for gastric bypass surgery and does not mind the title.

"If I'm known as the girl that lost weight and it's been six years later and I've still kept off the 110 pounds, God bless. Because I never kept off 100 pounds before in my life," said Wilson.

Gaining Weight … For a Baby

Wilson, now 37, is no longer at her fighting weight, but she has a very good reason. She's a new mom, with a 7-month-old daughter named Lola Sophia.

Doctors had advised waiting 18 months to conceive after the surgery, and Wilson could have safely had a baby like any other woman. She waited five years.

When pregnant she often asked her husband, "Do I look like a big, a big cow?,' said Wilson. "He would say, 'You're pregnant, you're beautiful.'"

She gained 70 pounds during the pregnancy soaring to 240 pounds. Obviously, that tiny new stomach can stretch -- and she could eat more since she was eating for two. Now that she's working to shed those pounds, she said the process is the same struggle it would have been before the surgery.

She'll stick to a strict regimen to lose the weight, eating protein first with little snacking and lots of exercise.

"I'm going to go back down to my smallest weight," said Wilson. "I have about 38 pounds to go and that would make me 150.

"I thank God I have enough energy now, where I can stand up without having achy feet. You know I can move around, I can do what I want to do. I'll be there for my daughter. I can chase her around the house when she starts to walk," said Wilson.

She said the weight will always be on her mind, and that's her way of remaining in check.

"My life is gratitude now; it's an attitude of gratitude,' said Wilson. "And I'm grateful that I'm sitting there looking at that macaroni and cheese right there and that, yeah, I want some but I'll be OK if I don't have any … that's big!" >>>>

Climbers are being told by Nepalese officials that Mount Everest's summit will be put off-limits to the public from all sides during the first 10 days of May, so the Chinese can carry an Olympic torch to the summit without risking a high-altitude confrontation over Tibet's future.

China hopes to put climbers on the 29,035-foot summit of Everest, the world's highest peak, by May 10 possibly using live television to broadcast it and doesn't want Tibetan activists to ruin that Olympic spectacle.

It plans to use the North Col and Northeast Ridge that was first climbed in 1960 — ironically by a Chinese and Tibetan team of more than 200 men and women.

Everest straddles the border of Chinese-controlled Tibet and Nepal, home to many Tibetan exiles and activists. May is considered the best time to climb Everest, but climbers have to be on the mountain weeks before to acclimatize to the harsh weather and high altitude.

"We're holding out hopes that it's a tentative decision, because we've got so many things in place," said Mark Gunlogson, president and owner of Seattle-based Mountain Madness, which has three clients preparing to climb Everest before the start of monsoon season, which is generally during the summer months.

"The May 10 date just doesn't work for anybody," he said. "That doesn't let people acclimatize, and the problem is if the Chinese are slow to get up there, or if they get held back with bad weather, that date just gets pushed back. But it's hard to say how many days past May 10 is acceptable. It's a bind for sure."

Expedition leaders and tour operators say they have been told by Nepalese associates who deal with the government that it intends to keep climbers off Nepal's summit via south side routes from May 1 to 10, while China closes its northern side.

But they say Nepal is still negotiating with interested parties on whether the lower elevations can be accessed, and the final word is expected to come within the next day or two.

On Friday, Nepalese officials said China had asked Nepal to not allow climbers to scale Mount Everest during the popular spring season. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said China had made the request last month.

China, which provides Nepal with crucial development aid and loans that far overshadow the millions of dollars a year from Nepal's climbing industry. Activists critical of Chinese policy in Tibet have unfurled banners at Everest Base Camp in the past.

"My hope/expectation is some compromise where we can start climbing, build some camps, acclimatize ... then pull down for a break while the Chinese are up high May 1 to 10," Eric Simonson, director of International Mountain Guides in Ashburn, Wash., said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

"Who knows, maybe the Chinese will summit April 25 and surprise everyone, and this will all be a non-issue!" said Simonson, one of the leading guides on Everest.

Last year, organizers for the Beijing Summer Olympics announced ambitious plans for the longest torch relay in Olympic history — an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents and reach Everest's summit.

The Olympic organizers have not released an exact date for the planned ascent. Expeditions from the Chinese side of Everest and around Cho Oyu — one of the most popular of the world's 14 peaks higher than 8,000 meters, or approximately 26,000 feet — already have been banned until May 10.

The China Tibet Mountaineering Association issued a notice about the closing on March 10 because of "concern of heavy climbing activities, crowded climbing routes and increasing environmental pressures will cause potential safety problems."

China has stepped up security along its border with Nepal and has asked Nepalese officials to be on the lookout for pro-Tibet protests, officials said Sunday.

Every year thousands of Tibetan refugees cross into Nepal, avoiding the highly guarded border point at Tatopani and instead walking for days across the Himalaya. Most of the refugees eventually move to India, where Tibet's government-in-exile and the Tibetans' spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, are based.

Phil Powers, executive director of the American Alpine Club based in Golden, Colo., said his organization planned to draft a letter appealing to Nepalese authorities to lift restrictions on climbers going up to Camp IV at 26,000 feet at the South Col.

That would let climbers using the route of Everest's first ascent in 1953 gain acclimatization for reaching the summit later in May, the month when most recent successful ascents during the pre-Monsoon climbing season have been made.

Other veteran climbers who have been up Everest suggested to the AP that Sherpa climbers who are certified as liaison officers could effectively monitor people who are conditioning themselves below the Everest summit on the Nepalese side.

Powers said the club, which publishes a journal of the world's most significant climbs, said a compromise would allow climbers to safely go up Everest and China to accomplish its public relations goals.

"It's sort of a pity that the celebration of Olympic sports is actually inhibiting the accomplishment of the climbers' craft," he said. "One of the great things about climbing is that because of their apolitical approach to their craft, they end up being great ambassadors across these political lines."

JOHN HEILPRIN