All of you did nice work with the various elements that I appreciated. A judging criteria that I decided ahead of time would have high priority was including emphasis or at least not 'too much' diminishment of the central foreground subject.
This focus brough a few versions to the top for me, then it was just a matter of refining my choice. The winner became clear, but it was very close after that.
Third place: tie between Rob Rider and Hendrik #1
Second place: rpatodia #2
Winner: betamax #2
I knew when I first saw this version that it was going to be hard to beat, because it was a clever way to bring that foreground into emphasis. I'm not normally one for borders but it worked well for me here. Overall so nice that it was easy to ignore the bit of merge garble on that central background peak.
Thanks for playing all, and over to you betamax!
p.s. here's the version of this shot from my processing attempts that I liked the most:
https://www.tmphillips.com/pg/upload/2020/08/02/20200802232539-1dc7827f.jpg