The Foil is a narrow spire right of The Petit Grepon and The Saber. It holds one of the best and narrowest summits in the park. Routes on The Foil tend to be adventurous and far less traveled than the routes on nearby spires. At 5.9, the South Face is the easiest route up The Foil. The South Face of The Foil starts out a bit lose and licheny, but the upper half offers some great alpine climbing. The route is rated "5.9 R" in the Rossier guidebook, but the "R" section on the 4th pitch is 5.7/8 and felt more PG-13 than R. That said, the "5.9" crack above this feels more like 5.9+/10-, but protects quite well.
Nate and I first attempted to climb the Foil on a bluebird late-spring day in June 2022. But when we arrived at the top of Pitch 3, a peregrine falcon was circling above, a bit anxious by our presence. We were on a good ledge, knew we could rappel onto the Saber rappel route leaving only a single sling, and felt that continuing upward committed us to the summit or leaving significantly more gear. We conservatively descided to bail, hoping to return at a later date.
Two years later, we decided to spend the first half of 4th of July long weekend at Sky Pond and climb a couple of routes. We climbed the
South Face (5.9, 7p) of The Foil and the
South Prow (5.7, 7p) of The Sharkstooth.
The following page provides a trip report for our climb ot The Foil. We thought this was a fun adventure route with some good climbing on the upper pitches and a unique summit. Our descent using the Southeast Descent gully made it a nice loop back to Sky Pond. Enjoy!
