Summitting Mount Everest... with the Olympic torch

by user ActiveSports

[1] I just read that China is improving weather stations on Mount Everest to monitor global warming and prepare for the Olympic torch relay that is slated to summit the world’s highest mountain on its way to opening ceremonies.

I’ve read Into Thin Air and watched most of the Discovery Channel’s series, Everest: Beyond the Limit and am having a hard time envisioning how one could summit that mountain while carrying and maintaining the Olympic torch. I think it would be fair to say that the people involved in that book and the television show struggled enough without having to worry about a perpetually burning flame. The torch will be specifically designed to burn at high altitudes, but even given that, I will be very interested to see how it unfolds.

(Photo provided by Getty Images/Franco Origlia)

Manny StilesMajor Leaguer

941 days ago

Score 3

Wake me when they either A) take the torch to Mars or to the bottom of Challenger Deep, or C) Play an Olympic Event on the top of Mt Everest (is Oxygen a PED?) Why are we wasting resources taking a freeking torch there? I mean it opens up the possibility of some Olympic Torch carrying-related trauma and/or deaths and all, but we as a Human Race have nothing better to do?

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