Team Geared Up

UPDATE 2215hrs - Video of torch on summit via Reuters:

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - An incoming report on the news today started like this…

EVEREST BASE CAMP, China (Reuters) - The Olympic torch was lit at the top of Mount Everest on Thursday, the crowning moment of the Beijing Games torch relay which had been dogged by anti-Chinese protests on its world tour.

Live reports from ‘Everest Base Camp’ have such a historic ring to them it generates excitement before reading them. The Everest flame will be reunited with the main flame later in the relay, possibly when it passes through Lhasa in mid-June.

Three months to the day before the Games open, the first batch of climbers from a 31-strong team set out at about 1.30 am (1:30 p.m. EDT) from a camp at 8,300 meters.

The climbers trudged slowly to the summit, in the final stages, staging a mini-relay. They unfurled the Chinese national flag, a flag with the five Olympic rings and a flag bearing the Beijing Olympic logo.

The real news here is that the Chinese authorities banned anybody else from stepping onto the mountain so far this season to insure themselves against having anybody get in their way to the summit. Now they’ve summited the other teams can start moving above camp 2 where the army have been preventing them from moving.

Is it right to close a mountain?

-Robin