FOR THE SJOGRENS, ExplorersWeb is not so much a news portal as a calling. They created it after climbing Everest without guides in 1999; they had found little reliable information for independent climbers like themselves, so they posted what they'd learned as a way to "give back." Initially the site was called MountEverest.net, focusing mainly on news from the world's highest peak. Over time it evolved into ExplorersWeb—a catchall site with links to specific topics like Everest, Oceans, Poles, and Space.

When you ask the Sjogrens why they do it, they talk about their motivations in nearly religious terms. "My grandfather was ten years in prison under the Soviets, for printing political stuff," Tina explains. "He was one of those guys who told it like it was. Much of ExplorersWeb comes from that."

They also give it up for Mother Teresa, whom they met while backpacking through India in 1985. Their visit was brief but powerful. "She sent us on our way to do our work in the world," says Tina. "It changed our lives. She blessed us to do good, really."

Sounds joyous, but their mission often leads to harsh coverage that many people find hard to take, and favorite targets include prominent commercial guides, outfitters, and explorers who, one way or another, don't meet with Tom and Tina's approval. It was ExplorersWeb that, right or wrong, accused Everest guide Russell Brice of malfeasance because the Sjogrens think he should have tried harder to save the life of independent climber David Sharp in 2006. It was ExplorersWeb that accused Everest outfitter Henry Todd of supplying faulty oxygen to climbers. And, day after day, it is ExplorersWeb that practically tape-measures the claimed feats of dozens of adventurers, often causing anger, outrage, and embarrassment.

"I do think they run witch hunts," says Ed Douglas, a lifelong climber and journalist who's written about mountaineering for 20 years. "Their moral outrage is not helpful ... it's bad for climbing."

Others counter that the Sjogrens' high-handedness is usually justified. One fan is Michael Kodas, a writer with The Hartford Courant who's finishing a book about the modern ugliness on Everest.

"There's a great need for coverage of what's happening on the mountain," he says. "A lot of what Tom and Tina say is dead-on, though some of it is completely outrageous. I have a lot of respect for them. If ExWeb wasn't doing this stuff, nobody would. They really have changed the face of adventuring."

As adventurers, the Sjogrens are the real thing. They've climbed Everest and attempted McKinley. In 2002 they skied unsupported to the South Pole, a 63-day journey. They rested for a month and then headed for the North Pole, which they reached after 67 days, making Tina the first woman to ski to both poles unsupported. They're now training for a two-person climb on K2 in 2008—unguided—which is why they moved from New York to Keystone. With business so good, unfortunately, it's getting hard to find time to train.

Their lives have always been a little crazy. Tina escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1968, at age nine, with her 29-year-old mother and one-year-old brother, leaving her father, a loyal Communist, behind. Tom was a competitive figure skater and a member of the Swedish national sailing team in the late seventies and early eighties.

They met when they were both 20 and started traveling the world. In 1986, they launched a Swedish business called Easy-shop, which delivers regularly scheduled shipments of toilet paper to customers. ("It's a steady business," says Tom, "and I've heard all the jokes.") They got rich off it, giving them the freedom to expand their adventures, starting with Everest in 1996. They tried to summit four years in a row, failing the first three times. They took a break to sail across the Atlantic, setting out from the Canary Islands in November 1998 on an O'Day 37, a relatively modest sailboat for a crossing, arriving in St. Lucia in February 1999. They went back to Everest and bagged it that May.

Next, they moved to Manhattan, feeling pretty good about life. "We had summited Everest, crossed the ocean, and we were millionaires," Tom says. Their first apartment was a penthouse on Central Park South. That felt too staid, so in 2000 they moved to a SoHo loft that became the base for ExplorersWeb until this spring.

After K2, their overarching desire is to take their act off-planet and—somehow, someway—get themselves to Mars. They aren't kidding. Their goal is to be en route by 2014. They figure the project can be done privately for as little as $50 million to $100 million, and they plan to raise their own money. They're ready to die in the attempt, if that's what it takes.

"We talk about dying," says Tina. "The only prayer I've made is that if we go, we go together."