EVEREST 2008: May 1-10 Ban on Everest Expeditions in Nepal–RETRACTED!!

Breaking News–Breaking News–Breaking News

This story is just beginning to make the rounds now..it seems as if Nepal has decided to let climbers go up, even possibly attempting a summit bid on Mt. Everest from May 1-10. Earlier reports suggested that Nepal would not allow expeditions to go any higher than Basecamp during the time that the Chinese were attempting to get the Olympic Torch to the top of Mt. Everest:

From Kyodo News

From NepalNews

Nepal Get’s Cold Feet on Everest Ban–From AsiaPacificNews

The recent news as linked from AsiaPacificNews said that a ban on possible Everest Expeditions was not due to Chinese Intervention, but rather the upcoming Nepal elections.It is known Nepal requires a government official ( a liason officer) to accompany each expedition on Everest. Nepal has stated this this requirement has meant a delay on any news regarding Expeditions since the election is scheduled to be held April 10th. All liason officers would be required to get permission to miss the election before being allowed to go up with the expedition teams.

“The government has not received any kind of request from the Chinese
government concerning this,’ Prem Rai, spokesman at Nepal’s culture,
tourism and civil aviation ministry, told the state-run Rising Nepal
daily.

It also quoted the media consultant at the Chinese embassy in
Kathmandu, who was named only as Wang, as saying, ‘I have no idea about
a ban.’

Still Some Doubts Remain

Just Monday, tourism officials met with mountaineering agencies about China’s plan to summit May 10. They stated that to prevent overcrowding on the summit that the Nepl expeditions would be coordinated to go as planned after China has finished with their bid to run the olympic torch to the top.

Not sure what has caused the turn around so quickly, but it is rumored that Nepal was frustrated at China for not giving them a tentative schedule on an exact date they would be able to begin expeditions. China gave a date of May 10th, yet Nepal says that depends mostly on weather conditions at the time. If it runs over schedule, then what?

We will see how this is played out in the next couple of days, but at this point, it looks like Nepal is open once again to expeditions going up the world’s highest peak–even during the May 1st-10th Chinese run.