# Alpine Ascent v3a — The Striding Climb (HORIZON, sequenced up)

`alpine-ascent-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

FAITHFUL take of the 'striding house' row: B♭ lydian, 88 BPM, a deliberate quarter-note tread — the climb as labor. The calm bed (ch0-3) is stacked-fifth pads (restful but upright) over a WALKING quarter-note sub — the stride lives in the bed, so standing still already feels poised to move; supports rest stops and route-reading, complete on its own. Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the HORIZON motif as an ascending pluck that SEQUENCES UP one diatonic step each phrase (transposeDegrees +1), so the far line climbs a notch every phrase — the ridgeline pulling you up, effort in the shape of longing; the lydian #4 (E) is touched at each crest as the ridge-edge glint (§7.1). L1 = lead pluck + a soft-pluck echo a touch behind. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS the house engine, not volume: the soft footfall KICK four-on-the-floor (the tread made groove) AND a struckPiano (tone WARM — the climb is intimate, not glossy) comping the stacked fifths on the off-eighths. Danger steps up to 104 BPM. Danger L1 (ch8-9) is the climb gone apprehensive: the stride turned into a heavy two-step tread under a darkening B♭/F drone, with one far deepBoom up the slope each cycle — the snowfield loaded, real material (NOT near-silence). Danger L2 (ch10-11) is active flee — the full ensemble crashing in: a driving kick+snare run and an urgent shaker/hat gallop (ch11), and the deepBooms (ch10) land EARLIER in the bar each cycle (the deepBoom 'sliding earlier each cycle' — the mountain getting ahead of you). A genuine intensity jump with new rhythmic instruments (the kit), not danger1 louder. Dread is abstract — register, density, tread weight, the booms sliding early — never a literal avalanche/gust foley and never a noise bed (the 'altitude wind' Depth note is RETIRED; its lift lives in the open pad register). Fully diatonic B♭ lydian; no chromaticism.
