Love, Daedalus

A hard and burly crux gets this route started pretty much off the deck. Place a solid cam and then fire a sequence of burly jams to gain the lip of the roof. Gather your composure and place a few pieces before continuing up the crack with mostly hand-sized gear to a good stance. From here, meander right, up, back, down, and whichever other way you need to gain a really dirty ledge (aim just left of the grassy bush). Lay your head upon the soft bed of pine needles as you mantle desperately into the rest, pausing only long enough to sink your hand into the dustiest hand-jam on Earth (and also add a few pieces of pro, as this will be your last for a while).

Sit at the ledge and ponder. Can you keep it together on the upper crux without flying too high or two low? Toss a prayer to Zeus for safe passage, and move cautiously out onto the flake. Don't even think about placing gear behind it; a fall at the crux could send it careening onto your belayer. No, fly boldly but carefully up another 10 feet on austere, slabby terrain before reaching the upper roof and placing a nest of gear.

Take a deep breath and huck a foot up into one of the most committing sequences on the route. Meander with precision up the remaining 20 feet of easier but unprotected climbing that is altogether too mossy for comfort. Make the final step across to the large block at the end of Sponge and clip the chains. 

The obvious wide crack out the roof between Sponge and Foster Child. 

Single rack from #0.2-5, with extras in hand sizes and #4. Double length slings to extend protection in the upper roof. Two ropes helps at the start to manage rope drag. Finish on Sponge anchors (Two bolted anchors with chains and carabiners). Helmet and choss goggles recommended for the belayer as the route is pretty dirty.

As climbed on the FA, this climb contains 3 runouts of consequence. The first is through the opening roof, where we placed one cam and then moved about 10 feet to a stance before placing another. A fall just before the stance has ground fall potential but could be avoided by placing a cam earlier in a more strenuous position. The second runout is longer, spicier, and contains both committing slab moves, a no-hands rest, and several plausible looking placements behind the flake to be tempting (but you probably shouldn't use them). A fall while placing gear at the end of this runout would be quite long (40 feet or so), and potentially dicey if you swing into the first roof. The last runout covers the remaining ground to the anchors. It is easy, dirty, and heady terrain. A fall at the anchors would not be good (maybe 50 feet). All of the hardest moves are well protected, but this is definitely a serious lead with major fall potential if you come off at the wrong place.

It’s a tale as old as time. Well ok, that’s not true at all. It’s a tale as old as Ancient Greece. Ok fine, for us it’s a tale as old as…a while.

We’ve had a bit of an Icarus bent for a while now. Nick and I just always seemed to have a knack of getting stoked on something way over our heads, flying too high, and getting a beat-down. So, when we saw this dirty roof line in the fall of 2021, we had to wonder to ourselves whether just maybe it was possible..?

It wasn’t. We rapped in and couldn’t get past the opening moves. We hangdogged our way up the Prow at Sunset instead. But we couldn’t quite shake the thought that we’d missed something. We heard from a local some people had worked the roof in the 90’s. So we came back and tried a new beta, and this time the lower roof seemed like it just might go. But the upper roof was an unsolved puzzle. Instead, we lived like dirtbags and scared ourselves silly on offwidth inverts in the Creek. We came back in 2022, intent on a lead. We scared ourselves pulling a microwave-sized block behind which we had placed some “bomber” gear behind. We did not lead.

Nick moved out of state. We got stronger, but the Icarus tendency never seemed to leave. We both moved on in our climbing and in our lives, but could never shake the thought of a final reckoning with this route, that had occupied our minds for years.

Finally, in 2024, we knew it was time to return, if ever there would be a time. Nick flew across the country, and we hopped on TR for the first time in 2 years. For the first time, every move felt doable, though perhaps not with a reasonable margin of confidence that we wouldn’t fall during the delicate runout section below the second roof.

The next day, we came back and I managed to fire the route first go, after a 20-minute existential unwinding as I sat at the no-hands halfway up the route and pondered whether to bail. I pre-placed two cams in the upper roof before leading to avoid the riskiest fall-potential move.

Nick went next and on the third go, fired the route in pure style, placing all the gear on lead, and bringing a two and a half year project to a close.

The movement on this route is stellar, the crack climbing boulder problem in the first roof is pretty unique, and we’d be beyond thrilled to see someone else get on this thing. It is burly, delicate, mentally challenging, and dirty in equal parts (though hopefully the latter will improve with time). We think it’s a true hidden gem, and possibly the hardest gear line at Foster Falls as well.