The team used torches designed by rocket scientists to take the flame along the final icy incline leading to the peak of Mount Everest. The jubilant climbers unfurled small Chinese and Olympic flags at the end of their ascent, which was broadcast live across China.
"One World, One Dream," team captain Nyima Cering yelled as his torch was lit, repeating the slogan for the Beijing Olympics.
The 19-member team, dressed in red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp at 27,390 feet (8,300 meters) before dawn and reached the top of the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) mountain a little more than six hours later.
The stop at the top of Everest was meant to be the highlight of the Beijing Olympics torch relay, the longest in Olympic history. The flame visited 19 countries before arriving in Hong Kong last Friday.
China wants the Beijing Olympics to be a glorious showcase of its rapid development from impoverished agrarian nation to rising industrial power. Its preparations have been meticulous: building glittering new venues, modernizing Beijing and even ordering residents to stop bad behavior like spitting, littering and cutting ahead of others in line-ups.
Organizers hope the dramatic image of the torch atop Everest will counter some of the damaging publicity from protests that marred the international parts of the torch relay.
Tibetan activists, however, continued to accuse Beijing of using the climb to reassert its control over Tibet. China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially an independent state for most of that time.
"The Chinese government's obsession with summitting Everest with the Olympic torch betrays the depth of its insecurity over its rule in Tibet which was so clearly challenged by Tibetans in March and April," Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a statement.
Politics aside, taking the torch to the peak and broadcasting it live was a technological feat. China's state broadcaster CCTV spent heavily to build a television studio at base camp and to construct transmission points at four camps on the mountain's face.
The torch was designed by a Chinese firm. Fueled by propane, the flame burned brightly in the windy, oxygen-thin Himalayan air thanks to technology that keeps rocket motors burning in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
"We installed a pressure-retaining valve in the torch, which enables the flame to withstand winds of up to 65 kilometers an hour (40 miles per hour), nearly 6 centimeters (2½ inches) of rain an hour, and temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit)," Liu Xingzou, the chief engineer of the project, was quoted as saying.
The Olympic flame was carried most of the way in a special metal canister. As the team neared the summit, they used a wand to pass the flame from the canister to the torch.
The climbers could be heard struggling for breath as five torchbearers inched a few feet (meters) before passing on the flame to the next person. A colorful Tibetan prayer flag stood beside the path and fluttered in the wind.
The final torchbearer, a Tibetan woman named Cering Wangmo, stood silently on the peak with her torch while other team members unfurled small Chinese and Olympic flags. They then clustered together, cheering "We made it" and "Beijing welcomes you."
The Everest flame is separate from the main Olympic torch, which on Thursday was on the opposite side of China, in the southeastern province of Guangdong, the heart of Chinese manufacturing. The relay leg scheduled for Thursday, in the boomtown of Shenzhen, was postponed until the afternoon to allow for the Everest ascent.
The main torch was not taken up Everest because of weather concerns. A delay due to bad weather would have thrown off the schedule for the whole relay.
The main flame will cross every region and province of China, returning to Beijing on Aug. 6, two days ahead of the opening ceremony.
China persuaded Nepal, a longtime recipient of Chinese aid, to keep climbers off its side of Everest for the first half of May to prevent surprise protests.
The 19-member climbing team was comprised of both ethnic Han Chinese and Tibetan members, underscoring another government theme - ethnic unity. The team captain and the final torchbearer were both Tibetans.
