Mont Blanc hike for Tibet

Numerous European Associations which support the Tibetan People have decided to join forces and take part in a march around Mont Blanc, symbol of the Alps and highest mountain in Europe. This cross-border project involves all Mont Blanc town councils and is supported also by Mountain Wilderness. Participants will be welcomed by the various communes and a series of events and meetings have been planned for the evenings

The complete Tour du Mont Blanc from France, Switzerland and Italy will take 16 days and includes various rest days along the itinerary. The march will begin at Les Houches, France (where the organisation Lions Des Neiges is based) at 14.00 on 8 August, which corresponds to 8am in Peking which mark the start of the Olympic Games. The Kora ritual march will commence with exiled monks and a group of Tibetan prisoners, and over 300 people have registered for the walk.

Courmayeur will host a series of pro-Tibetan events on 16 August with a theatre piece and an exhibition dedicated to ancient tangka organised by Renè Vernadet entitled “From the dark to the light”. The journalist and Tibetan specialist Piero Verni will present his film "Marching to Tibet", filmed during the march from Dharamsala (India) which hoped to enter the country right at the start of the Games.

Numerous representatives of the Tibetan government will take part in the evening event, as will the journalist Claude Levenson, the mountaineer Fausto De Stefani and the filmmaker and president of Mountain Wilderness International Carlo Alberto Pinelli, as well as representatives of the associations promoting the march.