The tarnished symbolism of the Olympic torch relays in London, Paris and San Francisco may seem tame beside the potential fallout of the Chinese plan to carry the torch to the world's highest peak, 29,035-foot Mt. Everest, on the border of Tibet and Nepal.
A century ago, John Muir, the prophet of the Sierra Nevada, wrote, "Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer." But there is no freedom on Mt. Everest right now, as the Chinese, with the complicity of a newly elected Maoist government in Nepal, have clamped severe restrictions and censorship on the usual spring rush to climb Everest and claim the ultimate prize of mountaineering.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, May 01, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 23 Editorial pages Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction
Torch climb: A photograph published Saturday with an Op-Ed article critical of the Chinese attempt to climb Mt. Everest with the Olympic flame was not a picture of Everest. It was Nuptse, a peak west-southwest of Everest.
The Chinese are promoting the torch climb as a symbol of sportsmanship and international goodwill, not to mention China's own vaulting ambitions. They devised a special torch to keep the flame burning at low oxygen levels, built a blacktop road through a wilderness to get it -- and the media -- to the base camp in Tibet, at 16,800 feet, and banned all other Everest attempts from the Tibet side of the mountain until the torch gets its chance between May 1 and 10, usually a window of calm offering the best climbing weather. Once anti-Beijing protests broke out in Tibet in March, they requested that Nepal shut down the south side of the mountain as well.
Sketchy website postings and occasional news reports indicate that as many as 500 climbers, Sherpas and others are on hold in the Nepal Everest base camp, at the foot of the Khumbu icefall at 17,500 feet. The camp is being overseen by a Nepalese army major under orders to confiscate all satellite telephones, computers and still and video cameras at least until May 10. Nepal has allowed climbing teams to carry food and supplies as high as Camp 2, at 21,000 feet, but until the torch climb is completed, they are prohibited from staying overnight there or climbing any farther. (There are four camps altogether on the South Col route, the route to the summit pioneered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in the first ascent, in 1953; teams acclimate at each one before attempting the next leg of the climb.)
The Associated Press reported late last week that as many as 25 Nepalese soldiers might be patrolling the bleak rock and ice of the South Col route. The report said the soldiers were given authority to squelch any protests of the torch relay or the Chinese oppression of the Tibetan culture. A Nepalese Home Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying the use of deadly force was authorized, but only as a last resort.
