Fickle Finger of Fate

A 3 pitch route starting on a big ledge above Seven Year Itch. Both Gunboat Diplomacy and Seven Year Itch are great routes, so this makes the entire endeavor a pretty fun 4-5 pitch romp up Rumbling Bald.

Pitch 1-2: Climb Gunboat Diplomacy or 7 Year Itch. Or I reckon you could climb Scream Like a Boy, Silent Treatment, or Flakeview, though those routes are all somewhat scary. Continue past the rap rings at the top of 7 Year Itch to a big pine ledge with a big flake system to the right (PIllar of Faith 5.7) and a hand crack in a right facing corner to the left. FFoF starts in the hand crack on the left.

Pitch 3 (5.7, 150'): Climb the 20' hand crack until it widens into an open book/chimney. Continue to the top of this and then onto the top of some big broken blocks to the left. From here climb easy, low angle terrain to a double bolt anchor at a big sloping ledge. Alternately, after the corner, you can also go out right on a ledge and awkwardly mantle a bulge to easy, dirty, runout 5.3 terrain before going back left to the anchor.

Pitch 4 (5.10-, 100'): Move just left of the anchor to incut holds on a steep face off the ledge (5.9) leading to a crack 15' up that angles to the right. The holds are nicely incut, but don't blow it before getting to the crack. Traverse right along the crack (5.9) until it peters out into low angle moves taking you up to a bolt. Clip the bolt and climb through a section of low 5.10 edging to another big belay ledge with a bolted anchor to the left.

Pitch 5: Apparently you can move out right of the belay anchor around the overhanging stuff above you to a short (40') 5.7 section. But directly above the belay is a very short boulder problem (5.10) with good gear leading to the trees. I think most people skip this pitch.

Descent: If you do the 5th pitch, make a short rap off a tree to the anchor of pitch 4. Then a 100' rap puts you at the anchor of pitch 3. From there, a 150' rap puts you either at a big tree above Seven Year Itch or the Seven Year Itch rap rings. A 160' rap from the tree or rings atop Seven Year Itch puts you on the ground.

On a ledge above Seven Year Itch. After climbing to the rap rings of Seven Year Itch, continue to the big pine tree ledge above. Fickle Finger of Fate is the hand crack to the left of the big flake system (Pillar of Faith)

Lots of quickdraws for Seven Year Itch or Gunboat Diplomacy. Plus a single rack from tiny to a #3 Camalot. I placed an X4 .1 twice on route. The initial handcrack could use a #4 Camalot, but a #3 works, and you might get away with a #2 or just running it out. It's pretty easy if you're capable of the other pitches on this route. A tagline or second rope is needed to get down.