Everest 2008: Olympic Flame Arrives at Mt. Everest Base Camp

Xinhua News-based in China- is reporting that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch has arrived at Mt. Everest base camp today. The torch arrived at the Tibetan Everest base camp in the afternoon–China time.

The expedition to carry the torch to Mt. Everest’s summit could begin as early as April 28th from a report coming from the Everest is Ours Blog:

“As reported by the SHARE Expedition the
other day, a helicopter touched down in Base Camp a couple of days ago
and after a brief walk through , left the area. Mondinelli reported
that word came down it was likely the Chinese were set to attempt the
summit early next week and that climbers would be restricted to BC from
April 28 (rather than from May 1).

Stephan Keck also reported on the visit stating it the helicopters carried a senior Chinese official, a representative from Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism and a high-ranking official from the Nepal military. After trotting through Base Camp for half an hour to see if restrictions were being complied with, the party left. “Trust is good, control is better!,” Stephan surmised.

The flame being carried up Mt. Everest is actually a separate flame than the one recently being marched through Seoul, Korea. I am guessing that the reasonings behind two separate flames is that 1) a special torch had to be made to withstand the high winds and altitude of Mt. Everest, and 2) security. China was pretty tight-lipped about the torch heading to Mt. Everest and with the attention currently on Korea for the Olympic Torch relay, China could manage to sneak the torch in to Everest base camp without much fanfare.