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Bella Coola Symphony 7/8It was only midday, and we decided to utilize the time trying to find a safe route. Turning upward, I left the snow by making a few moves on beautiful rock. Leaning out on firm, clean holds, I experienced the exhilaration which free and supple movement over the rock so often brings. The only possibility we could see was a vertical chimney directly above the snow slope. With a belay established at the base of this, I grappled with a huge elongated chockstone which blocked the entire upper portion of the chimney. After considerable effort, I managed to get in a piton behind the stone. Standing high in a makeshift sling, I was able to snake another sling around behind the stone, and so move a bit higher. With only one piton, makeshift slings, and the rope rapidly accumulating excessive drag, the climbing was becoming exceedingly awkward and strenuous. Lurching, spinning, and clutching at the wall for some time, I finally found the combination and my equilibrium. Snaking one more sling around the chockstone higher up for a handhold, I cut loose from my lower slings and started to climb free. It went quickly and easily, although my heart was still pounding from the exertions below. We were now on much easier ground, and we traversed along a series of ledges for several hundred feet. Clambering around a corner just below the apparent summit, we found that Aurora still lay above and beyond us. It was a disheartening sight, for the hour was now growing late. Having put such effort into the climb thus far, we were reluctant to turn back at rainsqualls scudding across dark southern skies, we continued up along the summit crest toward the final peak. Approaching close in under it, we skirted up and around on the west over steep blocks. A few final moves, and the summit was ours. It had not come easily. We found an easier way off the summit by dropping directly south down a steep little wall, and then along the very crest of the peak. Retracing our steps, we were overtaken by rain at the top of the difficult chimney. A rappel point was rigged with sling, following a futile search for piton cracks. The night was spent at the base of the chimney, huddled under a dripping overhang, peering out into the play of moonlight on the mists. Heeling down the couloir the next day, we quickly followed it to its bottom. Our original southwest face route to this point had been selected because we knew we could enter the couloir from its west side. While the southeast slopes had appeared easier, it had not been apparent that the couloir could be entered from its east side. On the descent, though, we found it easy to continue straight ahead down the white dike, instead of leaving it and veering west to descend along side the watercourse. Following the dike for several hundred yards, we then left it and angled down over easy ground to the southeast. Negotiating a tricky band of grey rock, we were camped. We had been gone thirty-four hours, only ten of which had been in bivouac. Wending through the moraine toward our tent, we suddenly froze in our tracks. A short way off a bear was peering intently at us! Creepy sensations played up and down my spine as I waited for him to charge. I motioned quietly for Frances to get a small telescope from my pack. As I focused it on the beast, he resolved into a brown stain on a boulder, complete with rounded ears and intent black eyes. Hiking in the tent for the next few days, we let the "bears" have the run of the meadow. Besides, it was raining. Soon it was time to bring Joe and Joan Firey, Frank de Saussure, and Arnie Bloomer. We returned over Symphony Saddle, and found upon reaching the lake that our friends had arrived that morning. They soon came into camp, having just made the second ascent of Poet Peak. The next day we all returned to the Borealis Camp. This time we went around the west side of Poet Peak and descended to Borealis Glacier, following the tracks of a grizzly who had used the same route, but certainly far less scenic. We then all climbed Helios, Aurora's western twin. Going up the Borealis Glacier, we ascended into the saddle between Helios and Hyperion, the next peak west. We were quite intrigued to find that the saddle consists of sedimentary rocks, for we had never before encountered anything except metamorphics and occasional granite. We found the southwest face above the saddle to be quite easy, with the only problem being one of route finding. Toward the top we encountered some beautiful rock which offered ideal climbing. Forsaking easier ways, we would tackle steeper pitches, revelling in the sheer pleasure they offered. While the ascent had been in sun, we found the summit wreathed in mists; and a cloud streamer completely shrouded our hoped for view of Aurora. The following day all except Frances and Frank headed down through the big meadow toward Luna, the small but sharp peak adjacent to Aurora on the east. Reaching a snow basin below the southeast side of Luna, we followed grizzly tracks up the slope and down onto a small glacier on the east side of the peak. We decided to try the northeast ridge, not because it seemed the easiest way, but in hope of getting views of new peaks to the north. The ridge provided an unexpectedly good climb, with several respectable roped pitches. Loose rock detracted from the aesthetic values, though, and we would suggest other routes for subsequent ascents. On the following rest day, we moved camp up Borealis Creek and into a small basin just below the south side of Ape Mountain. This was an area of rolling heather benches studded with small lakelets. Our objective was Horribilis Mountain, due north of Talchako. Several days of intermittent rain, cloud, and gradual clearing intervened, but the wait proved more than worthwhile. When we finally started at 5 a.m., the day was perfectly cloudless and still. As we topped the cirque crest above our camp, the view of Ape Creek held us spellbound. Filling the valley as far as we could see in either direction was a sea of cloud, with the early morning light grazing across the rippled golden-gray surface. For almost two miles we traversed the slope above Ape Creek, then crossed a low ridge and walked onto the glacier which drains the west side of Horribilis. We started straight up into a northward facing alcove in the flank of the southwest ridge. We realized that the west face was a much easier route, but the aesthetic challenge of the ridge appealed to us, even though it might cost us the summit. Beyond here, the ridge provided simple scrambling. Above us, an imposing wall seemed to bar access to the upper mountain, but as we neared it a ledge appeared leading off to the left around a corner. Leaving the ridge to follow the ledge, we rounded the corner onto the west face and found easier climbing. The easy ground gave way to somewhat more difficult going, and then we were on the open talus slopes leading to the summit. From the top, the interesting views in other directions were overshadowed by that toward Talchako; we speculated on an eventual ascent of its impressive north face.
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