CrossClimb #898: Five Clues, One Letter at a Time

The Tactical Read

CrossClimb #898 rewards careful ordering rather than quick guessing. Each answer has four letters, and every neighboring rung must differ by exactly one letter in the same position.

Solve the Clues

The five clue answers are:

• Clue 1: Drop out of a poker hand → FOLD
• Clue 2: What many farms generate → FOOD
• Clue 3: Robin ___, legendary outlaw → HOOD
• Clue 4: It’s at the end of a fishing line → HOOK
• Clue 5: Game piece that moves up and down and side to side, but not diagonally → ROOK

The clue meanings are direct, but the real challenge is finding the only order that preserves the one-letter rule.

Build the Ladder

Start with FOLD and compare it with FOOD. The first two letters remain FO, and the final two positions change as a unit only if the words are misread. The valid comparison is positional: FOLD becomes FOOD by swapping the third letter, L, for O, while the final letter remains D.

Next, FOOD becomes HOOD. The first letter changes from F to H; the other three letters stay fixed.

Then HOOD becomes HOOK. The fourth letter changes from D to K, preserving HOO.

Finally, HOOK becomes ROOK. The first letter changes from H to R, while OOK remains intact.

The completed clue ladder is:

FOLD → FOOD → HOOD → HOOK → ROOK

Every Swap at a Glance

• FOLD → FOOD: third letter L → O
• FOOD → HOOD: first letter F → H
• HOOD → HOOK: fourth letter D → K
• HOOK → ROOK: first letter H → R

The repeated OO core makes the chain feel almost locked in place. That stable center is the key visual pattern: once FOOD, HOOD, HOOK, and ROOK are recognized, the ordering becomes forced.

Resolve the Compound Finish

The completed ladder points toward the two-word music phrase requested by the final clue. The upper endpoint is one letter from FOLD: FOLK, changing the fourth letter from D to K.

The lower endpoint is one letter from ROOK: ROCK, changing the fourth letter from K to C.

Together, FOLK and ROCK form the compound pair describing a music genre associated with acoustic guitars and socially conscious lyrics: folk rock.

Final Logic

The ladder is not just a sequence of clue answers. It is a controlled chain of one-letter substitutions:

FOLK → FOLD → FOOD → HOOD → HOOK → ROOK → ROCK

Each transition changes one position, while the endpoint words combine to answer the final music question. The satisfying “Aha!” is seeing that the first and last words are not separate guesses: they are the caps that complete the same letter-by-letter climb.