He made it to the top of North America's tallest peak the evening of the Fourth of July on a guided expedition and seemed to be doing fine; he was moving slowly, but so was everyone in the high, thin air, said Maureen McLaughlin, Denali National Park's Talkeetna-based spokeswoman for mountaineering operations.
They went up the popular West Buttress route.
There was no sign of altitude sickness, which can cause nausea and headaches and extreme fatigue, she said. No history of heart trouble, says his family. No lead-up at all.
Inexplicably, Nasti, a 51-year-old from the Chicago suburb of Naperville, collapsed and died on the 20,320-foot summit of McKinley.
"Here you have a good summit day. Everybody's climbing good. Everything is a picture-perfect trip up to this point with nothing that would indicate there is going to be a problem," said Daryl Miller, the park's south district ranger.
Guides and an emergency medical technician among the Alpine Ascents International clients on the climb did CPR for up to 45 minutes but couldn't bring Nasti back, according to the Park Service.
"I would have to say it's probably one of the most unusual cases in the history on Denali to have this happen at the top and to have it with a person that exhibited solid -- a seemingly strong person all the way up," Miller said.
101ST CLIMBING FATALITY
Nasti is the first climber ever to die on the McKinley summit, an exposed, flat area about the size of a single-car garage, according to the Park Service.
"He was literally hoisting -- just pulling himself up by his ice axes and just fell back. It could have been a heart attack or anything else that would have caused a really sudden death," said his son, Chris, 24, from the family home in Naperville.
Nasti's death is the third this season and the 101st on the mountain since the first fatalities were recorded in 1932.
Many bodies are recovered. But now there are 38 on the mountain, according to the Park Service. Some climbers vanish, like two from Japan who disappeared in May on an especially treacherous route. Others, like Nasti, die in an area risky to reach. "Some, we know a general location but snow and elements have obscured it," McLaughlin said.
Nasti was a senior manager with Kraft International and an active outdoorsman his whole life, said Chris, the oldest of Nasti's three sons. There's Joe, 22, and Mike, 19. He also leaves his wife, Peggy.
Nasti ran cross country and track in high school and college, camped and hiked with his family, was a Boy Scout leader. A few years back, he got into mountain climbing. He belonged to the Highpointers Club, in which members aim to hike or climb to the highest point in all 50 states, Chris said. His dad had climbed Mount Rainier in Washington a couple of times -- Mount Hood in Oregon too.
Alaska, with Mount McKinley, was No. 49. Nasti joked that he saved North Dakota for last because it was relatively easy, with just 3,506-foot White Butte, Chris said.
ASCENT CYBERCASTS
Nasti was on an Alpine Ascents team led by guides Michael Horst and Suzanne Allen, according to the business's Web site.
The company's program director, Gordon Janow, referred questions to the Park Service.
The guides are both experienced mountaineers, and Seattle-based Alpine Ascents has guided on Denali for 15 years, according to the Park Service. They are a big outfit with a good reputation and operations around the globe, McLaughlin said.
One of the six clients on the trip had a stomach bug and turned back at around 8,000 feet, soon after they left base camp, Miller said. As the guides led Nasti and the remaining four to the top, they posted regular "cybercasts" on Alpine Ascents Web site. They were Alpine's Team XI.
"We were able to fly in on the 20th with good weather. The next day it rained a little bit, we did some exercises around camp, we reviewed crevasse rescue and that sort of thing. ... Everyone is doing well and having fun," the guides said in their initial cybercast on June 22. On July 3, Horst wrote that the team was at high camp waiting for good weather. The next day was calm and clear.
The climbing season, which cranks up in May, is winding down. So far this year, 668 climbers have reached the summit. That's 57 percent of those who have completed their climb.
Some 105 people, counting rangers, remained on the mountain Monday.
BODY MAY REMAIN
After Nasti died, park rangers decided it would be too treacherous to try to bring his body across a 500-foot knife-edged ridge that climbers must negotiate just below the top. Winds were picking up, and the temperature was about 0. Park rangers advised the rest of the Alpine Ascents group to descend.
The Park Service delayed announcing the death publicly while Nasti's body lay exposed. They didn't want to risk anyone flying overhead to catch a glimpse, take a photo or record video that could end up on the Internet, Miller said.
Other climbers with Alpine Ascents reached Nasti's body on Sunday and buried him in a secluded, snowy depression.
His body could be recovered but McLaughlin said it would be a technical effort that would need at least a half-dozen highly skilled climbers. She thinks it will be up to Nasti's family. The Park Service probably wouldn't be involved because it's not a rescue, she said.
The bamboo stakes aren't expected to last up near the summit, where winds can top 100 mph. But the guides also took GPS coordinates of the burial spot.
"They've got him kind of buried in a secluded place still at the top of the mountain," Chris said. "We're as a family pretty happy with the thought of him staying up there. If he was going to be buried anywhere, we really couldn't think of a more appropriate place."
Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.
ALPINE ASCENTS: More on their guiding service and Mount McKinley expeditions at
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.