Costa Rican chef and athlete Daniel Vargas failed to reach the summit of Everest, he announced Tuesday on his Instagram account. “The mountain didn’t want to. The window closed, and there’s no more opportunity. They’re descending toward a safe zone,” he said at around 7 a.m. Costa Rica time.
Although Vargas tried, he encountered several obstacles that prevented him from achieving his goal. First, on May 12, they had to return to base camp because of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Tibet, which borders Everest. “This caused a large avalanche that fortunately didn’t reach the camp,” his team reported.
Although they climbed again, on Monday he was at Camp 4, the last point toward the summit, but a storm caught up with them and left them trapped there. “The chances of reaching the summit are minimal due to the weather and lack of oxygen, however, they will give us a couple of hours to exhaust ourselves until the last minute,” they wrote this Monday. And so it happened. The chef attacked again around midnight in Costa Rica, but he was unsuccessful.
Second attempt
This is the second attempt by the Costa Rican to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain (8,849 meters above sea level). On the first occasion, he suffered cerebral edema. He made that announcement on May 18, 2024. That day, he indicated that he had felt “extremely ill” when he arrived at Camp 1. In fact, he required helicopter transfer to a hospital in Kathmandu.
Ligia Madrigal, the last Tica to achieve summit
“Not being able to get that photo at the summit with the Costa Rican flag weighs heavily on me. But that doesn’t mean it’s something you can achieve later,” she said at the time. The last Costa Rican to conquer Everest is Ligia Madrigal, who achieved the goal on May 22 of last year.
