UPDATE: About two hours ago, Tico climber Warner Rojas and his Jagged Globe expedition team set off from Camp 4 in Mount Everest, altitude 7,950 meters, to the summit. This is the final charge towards the pinnacle, and team leader David Hamilton called on his satellite phone down to Everest Base Camp earlier today to let them know they were on their way.

The team made great progress yesterday from Camp 3. According to Jagged Globe, the team is poised for the summit and Warner Rojas is ready to plant the flag of Costa Rica at the top of the world:

“The Everest and Lhotse teams left Camp 3 this morning at 06:40 local time. They climbed on oxygen to the South Col. We estimate there were up to 150 climbers en route to camp 4 today (24 May).

The first members of our team reached the Yellow Band (7,600m) at 9.45 a.m. David Hamilton reported gusting winds approx 30kph. The leading members of the team passed the Lhotse Y at about 11.00 a.m.

David reached Camp 4 (7,950m) at 12.55 p.m closely followed by Warner, Phil and Ian at 13:10. All climbers had arrived in Camp 4 by 15:00.

Now it is time to study the weather and discuss plans with the other teams. Discussions with the Swiss weather forecaster show that there may be a drop in wind speeds as our team heads off tonight. We hope that the weather stays calm for them throughout their summit attempt.”

Depending on the wind gusts, Mr. Rojas and his team members could summit in the next few hours. Mr. Rojas is carrying a variety of electronic tracking and communication devices that have kept his followers in Costa Rica informed of his whereabouts. We have been able to track him thanks to equipment provided by NavSat and a live feed from Teletica, but the Jagged Globe team has reported that some electronics are failing, or else the climbers are too exhausted to carry the extra weight and operate them. Ian Ridley, one of Mr. Rojas’ fellow climbers, left the following update on his blog from the Everest:

“I’m sorry to say that I’m going to be leaving the electronics necessary to send the blog here at Camp Two.

I’ve removed any excess items from my pack and it just seems crazy to add another 750 grams back to it. That just shows you how fine I think the line between success and failure could be.

I am still talking my satellite phone so I intend to do a lot more ‘tweeting’ so you’ll still be able to follow my progress. To be fair I’m not sure how much energy I’d have to write anything meaningful. Unfortunately it’s very much a one way affair. I can tweet but I can’t see any messages that have been sent.

You’ll also hopefully be able to follow my progress on the interactive map page on the web site. I still plan on taking the Spot2 gps messenger with me. Unfortunately I forgot to switch it on this morning, so it’s not fool proof.”

The image on this article was generated by the GPS messenger that Mr. Ridley is carrying. He will be close to Mr. Rojas, so you can follow him at the Spot2 page in case the NavSat/Teletica updates freeze.