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Climber dead on McKinley summit

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (UPI) -- Officials with Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve said a climber collapsed and died on the summit of Mount McKinley.

The officials said the July 4 incident, which marked the first recorded death of a climber on the 20,320-foot summit, took place 14 days into the expedition. The victim, James Nasti, 51, of Naperville, Ill., had shown no previous signs of distress, the Anchorage Daily News reported Monday.

The National Park Service said guides performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Nasti for about 45 minutes but were unable to help him regain a pulse. Nasti's guides, from Alpine Ascents International, said he was climbing just before he collapsed.

The service said there was "no safe means of recovering the deceased at that time."

"Just below the summit, climbers must negotiate a 500-foot-long knife-edge ridge. A recovery along this ridge would require a highly skilled technical rescue team and a rope rigging system," the park service said. "Considering the high risk involved in such a ground lowering, as well as the excessive risk of a helicopter recovery at this extreme elevation, the National Park Service has determined that the safest alternative is to leave the remains of the deceased climber on the mountain at this time."

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 07/07/2008

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