Crossclimb answer for Saturday, January 24, 2026

Today's ladder has 7 rungs, each a 5-letter word.

The clues for today's five middle rungs are: (1) “Nothin’ but blue ___” (line from an Irving Berlin song that might describe sightings on a very clear day) (2) Moves by using one’s left foot twice, then one’s right foot twice, and so on (3) Vessels in a navy (4) Locations in a mall (5) Brushes off an insect, like a fly

The top and bottom rungs of the ladder share one bookend clue describing how the two words relate to each other, even though the ladder itself climbs word-by-word from top to bottom.

Crossclimb is a word ladder: each rung changes exactly one letter from the rung above it while staying the same length, so the whole climb reads as one continuous chain of near-identical words.

No. You can guess the five middle rungs from their clues in any order, but the real game only accepts the ladder once you arrange all seven words into their correct climbing sequence.

Solve the five middle rungs first. Once the one-letter chain is filled in, the relationship between the top and bottom bookend words is usually much easier to spot.