According to Xinhua, China's state news agency work on a new 150 million yuan road project from the foot of the mountain, within the Tibetan Autonomous Region, to Base Camp began in July and took just four months to complete. The 110-kilometre road follows the route of an existing track that takes a day to trek along and is unsuitable for motor vehicles.
Local climbers welcome the news, saying than the road allows those attempting to scale Everest to save their energy for the arduous ascent from Base Camp. However, environmentalists fear that the development will further endanger the region's fragile ecology by attracting even more tourists.
The road facilitated part of China's ambitious 130-day Olympic torch relay, which covered an unprecedented 137,000 kilometres across five continents, including the peak of the world's highest mountain, which is known as Qomolangma in China.