• RD's first rock climb on Bob's Knob granite friction slab, Adirondacks (reward: a boot kiss)
• Woodstock Music Festival, New York and Mardi Gras, New Orleans
• Cirque of the Towers, Wind Rivers (wet ridge bivvy)
• Grand Teton & Mt. Moran, Tetons (dry ridge bivvy)
• 1979 Mt. Alberta, Japanese Route (snowy summit bivvy with St. Elmo's ball of fire)
• 1980 Denali, traverse (RD, Dean Rau, and me) from Wonder Lake down West Buttress
• Rock climbs in Yosemite and Gunks
• Many backpacks and hikes in Canadian Rockies
• Mt. Sir Donald, Northwest Arete
• Mt. Robson, 5 attempts over many years before our successful ascent via Kain Face in 1995 completed this unfinished business

Some e-mail communications with RD before his K-2 North Ridge Expedition, 1996:

Wandering soul's prayer
Ascending
Towards your destiny
Schlepping along the trail
Listening to favorite tunes
Feasting the heart and mind on the scenes
Waiting.
Being
In the reach
Of the heavens
Twixt the abyss
Of light and storm
Waiting.
Knowing
There it is
Here we are
Once in a lifetime
Things happen
Waiting.
Doing
The program
Of one's will
Achieving the desires
Of mortality
Waiting.
Completion
When the sense of doing
Vanishes by knowing
The vista of being
When one is ascending
And there is no waiting.

…..Gerry Dienel, May, 13, 1996

Top it off
Poet in climbing
Each meter
Is metre
Rhythm of the rhyming
Climbing poet
Rendered in words
Disconnected from
All as you know it
Singing along
Heart to mind
The peak we find
Heart song
Upward no more
Stopping
At the end of time
On heaven's floor
Top of the route
Gazing in wonder
At all below and above
All else is moot
Standing alone
Yet with others
The ascent team
Never alone
North ridge flew
Miles to go
Back and forth
To the top, K-2.

…..Gerry Dienel, May, 14, 1996

Photo at top: RD on the summit of Mt Alberta