UKC

OK, I realise I'm an old fart, who can't remember where his slippers are half the time, and who now eyes up a bag of Werthers Originals in the same way I used to eye up a pretty lady many years ago, but I'm struggling to understand the difference between on-sight, and flash on-sight?

To me, on-sight is where you climb a route you've never done before, starting at the bottom, and finishing at the top in one continuous ascent, with no falls or weighting any gear.

So what is a 'flash' on-sight?

Does it mean no knowledge whatsoever of the route beforehand, including not reading the guidebook description, not getting any beta from friends, YouTube or any other source, not having had a sneaky look from an adjacent route in the past?

And if it's a multi-pitch route, do I have to lead every pitch - does alt leads automatically negate a flash on-sight - or does it still count as long as I don't watch whilst I'm belaying my partner on their pitch?

Or is it exactly the same as an on-sight, but you have to shout 'He's the savior of the universe' before the crux moves, and 'Gordon's alive!' after them?

In reply to Goucho:

You're almost right but the wrong way around. Onsight is to turn up and do the route (though you can argue that climbing up, placing gear and climbing back to the ground without weighting said gear to have a rest and then doing the route with the gear in place is also onsight).

A flash is when you've got 'beta', i.e. you know something about the route, it can range from having read an overly informative guide book description through to having analysed videos and watched friends try it next to them on an abseil rope.

In reply to Goucho:

this has been done to death on the forums so many times. mods is there any chance you can sticky a post defining flash/onsight/whatever.

In reply to tom84:

Come on, it was worth it for the flash gordon joke alone, surely??

In reply to A Longleat Boulderer:

Thanks for that

In reply to tom84:


If it has been done to death on many occasions, then that would seem to indicate that there possibly hasn't been complete clarity in the definitions?

In reply to Goucho:


No, it would indicate that a substantial proportion of the population don't know how to use Google or the UKC search box!

As with anything, there are some grey areas around the edges (you can probably find a contrarian to argue that knowing the grade or even the line of the route constitutes beta, and things seem to get a bit weird with what constitutes a "clean ascent" on a big wall) but I found three fairly clear and consistent definitions in about the first few google results for "climbing terms flash".

The Flash Gordon joke means you're off the hook, though.

In reply to Ramblin dave:



I should have dispatched Warlock and Ajax to check things out before posting

In reply to AdamCB:

yeah go on, have that one! perhaps it would be good if someone put together 'the definitive' rock fax/ukc bible on ethics/ ascent style- could also provide fertile ground for further argument, potentially leading to more flash gordon jokes.

In reply to tom84:

A few relevant terms are defined (albeit briefly) here
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=33
a good start, at least.

In reply to Goucho: I think part of the problem is that over the years the terms have changed meaning. If I remember correctly (and like you this may be an issue) "flash" was an adjective applied to on-sight and beta. So originally I think the meanings were...

On-sight - turn up at the crag with no knowledge except the guidebook and what you can see from the ground and do the route having not been on it before. Falls etc were allowed (not sure about this bit but you could certainly reverse to ground and go up again).

On-sight flash - do an on-sight in one push with no falls, rests, etc.

Beta - information from other sources (mates, abseil-but strictly no practicing moves, etc) negating the possibility of an on-sight.

Beta-flash - having obtained beta, climb in one push with no falls , rests, etc having not been on it before.

RedPoint - do what you like but eventually climb in one push (PinkPoint - gear already in).

However On-sight flash has now pretty much become On-sight and the old meaning of On-sight has disappeared leading to all these discussions about whether it's still on-sight if you climb down to the ground have a long rest and then go up again.

And Beta-flash has become just Flash.

PinkPoint has disappeared and a lot (most?) hard routes are now redpointed (and flashed) with gear already in.

Think that's about right

In reply to Michael Hood:

Here we go again ...

In the beginning:-
Flash meant a no-falls & no rehearsal ascent.
Nothing was ever stated or even unstated about a continuous push, and reversing to the ground to continue the attempt later or another day was regarded as not only fair game but a good and useful tactic.

This was subdivided into:-
Onsight Flash, where no 'beta' was known in advance, and
Beta Flash, where beta was known in advance.
For both of these nothing was ever stated or even unstated about a continuous push.

In time:-
Onsight Flash was abbreviated to Onsight, and
Beta Flash was abbreviated to Flash

Climbing without returning the ground was a requirement introduced to speed up competitions in the late 80s or early 90s and had no relevance to climbing routes outdoors ... until gradually some people started to apply it outdoors and in doing so denied themselves a good and useful tactic in getting a route first go.

In reply to Michael Hood:




I though that was a Headpoint?

In reply to Goucho:

To quote another old fart after having all the various terminology, including the now-defiunct pink point, explained to him: "I see. So on-sight flash is what we used to just call climbing and all the others are what we used to call failing."

In reply to john arran:


I wonder why?


Exactly when was Genesis as far as you're concerned?


You mean 'on-sight'?


Please explain how reversing back to the ground, and then coming back another day, can possibly make what is now a 'second' attempt onsight???



By no beta, I presume you mean not even knowing where the route goes?


You mean reading the guidebook description and knowing where the route goes?


This could explain where some confusion comes from.




You mean this was how it was all re-invented sometime in the 80's/90's?


Er, not really. It was a pretty big part of the difference between an onsight, and yo-yoing/dogging a route - you didn't have to weight the gear - long before competitions were even thought of.

And please - just to humour this old fart - can you explain logically, how coming back for a second go, can still count as getting a route first go???

All I can say is I'm glad that whoever has been responsible for all the changes of terminology and categorisation, didn't become dentists, because if they did, they'd probably ask you to take your trousers off, and examine your teeth via your arse

I think I'll stick to what I've always classed as onsight, because at my age, I haven't got enough years left to spend trying to reconcile the contradictions

In reply to Wiley Coyote:

In reply to Goucho:


I think that's probably best, since my descriptions were about as simple and incontrovertible as I could imagine any being.

The only thing I would add in respect of your many comments is to explain that stepping to the ground and doing the first move again clearly doesn't make any difference to success or failure on a route - it never has done - just like reversing any of the other moves on a route doesn't either. By extension it doesn't matter how long you spend on the ground before stepping on again. If stepping to the ground constituted failure then I'm sure a great many of our lauded first ascents would need to be reconsidered. Having 'another go' in such a case is simply continuing the onsight or flash attempt, since it has yet to be thwarted by failure.

ps. before someone pipes up with the usual riposte, bouldery starts and decking from low (or high) moves is a grey area.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Possibly closer to home than I anticipated...

In reply to Wiley Coyote:

I agree with John Arran.

On-sight is what you think of as climbing ie not weighting the rope and very limited information. None of the others allow weighing the rope either but you may obtain beta about the moves and flash the route or even practice them first before a red point.

In reply to Goucho:
Or to quote a young whippersnapper asked about his failure after being spat off his route the previous weekend: "I did not fail on it because I've not actually given up. So officially I'm still working it."

In reply to Wiley Coyote:

To be honest, if I fall off a route, hang on the gear, try to aid it and eventually give up and get my mate to lead it then I obviously can't claim the "tick", but I still wouldn't classify it as a failure. A failure would have been looking at it from the bottom, deciding that it looked a bit hard and scary and trying the easier route next door

In reply to john arran:


Lets agree to disagree on this John


Spoken like Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister.


To join several other grey areas in fact.

In reply to Goucho:

Longleat Boulderer said:

You're almost right but the wrong way around. Onsight is to turn up and do the route (though you can argue that climbing up, placing gear and climbing back to the ground without weighting said gear to have a rest and then doing the route with the gear in place is also onsight).

A flash is when you've got 'beta', i.e. you know something about the route, it can range from having read an overly informative guide book description through to having analysed videos and watched friends try it next to them on an abseil rope.

You said:



So why not leave it at that? It's pretty much all one needs to know, and very concisely put too!

In reply to john arran:


How can decking be a gray area when it is the most comprehensive form of failure possible? You have failed on both the basic climbing goals: getting to the top and not hitting the ground.

In reply to Michael Gordon:






This is UKC Michael, where's the fun in that?

In reply to Goucho:

Good point!

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

As always, it can depend if you have weighted the rope or not.

In reply to Michael Gordon:


Hang about, so if you fall off a route attempting an onsight but don't weight the rope - eg hit the deck, your next attempt will still be classed as onsight, but if you weight the rope - eg. not hit the deck, it won't be?

That kind of logic is worthy of Doctor Strangelove

In reply to Goucho:

It's because it's hard to draw a line between a well controlled jump off from 1 metre (surely fair game), a poorly controlled jump and a fall/slip/slide.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

From 1 metre the nature of the airborne descent is irrelevant, and doesn't effect anything. However, from higher than that, it's a fail on the first attempt either way, and an onsight has to be first go surely? Anything else starts to fall into working a route leading to a headpoint.

In reply to Goucho:
kind of tangential , but i m sat in the lounge reading this thread and the kids are watching some cartoon or other on netfilx, just as i was reading the bit about falling off the tv went loud and i looked up from the laptop to see some flying penguins crash land santa sledge in to a tree (bear with me here)
large female penguin says in what i think was supposed to be a comedy african american accent: "what kind of landing was that ?"
lead slightly stupid sounding male: "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing"

In reply to Goucho:

So you'd draw the line at 1 metre? Seems like a bit of an arbitrary figure.

In reply to Michael Gordon:


No, I'm saying that retreating from a first attempt on a route via the air, is retreating from the route, whether it's a gracefully controlled jump featuring a mid air pirouette and a landing a cat would be proud of, or a fall, the situation has been created by not being able to do a certain move/moves on the first attempt resulting in a very quick retreat.

The height of 1 metre was your 'arbitary' measurement, and hardly constitutes more than one move off the ground, hence my comment.

In reply to Goucho:

So you'd draw the line at 1 move? What if the move is a jump for the first hold?

In reply to Goucho:

The thing is, if you allow a wee step down to the ground you really have to allow a downclimb from any height (as it makes no sense to draw the line at a certain height). But if you allow that but not a jump off then you'd get the absurd situation of a reverse of a desperate bouldery start being allowable, but not a nice easy jump onto a big ledge.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Now you're just being pointlessly pedantic.

But for the record, I've made a few controlled airborne retreats from the odd poorly protected grit desperate -
some from quite high - and when I've got back on the rock, and completed the route, I've never considered my ascent an onsight!

In reply to Michael Gordon:

It's because it's hard to draw a line between a well controlled jump off from 1 metre (surely fair game), a poorly controlled jump and a fall/slip/slide.

I reckon down climbing is fine to preserve the On-Sight, jumping off isn't.

In reply to FactorXXX:



If anyone decides to try and put this in a book, they'd have to call it Fifty Grades of Grey

In reply to all:

It's actually quite simple:

If you're attempting something given a route grade, then any amount of jumping or falling off a boulder-problem start is allowed without blowing the on-sight.

If, however, you're attempting a boulder problem, then falling or jumping off does blow the on-sight.

Thus, if you have a guidebook that says that Careless Torque is E8, then you're allowed any number of attempts at the start (or indeed any of it). If, though, the book says it is 8A or V11, then you're not.

If you happen to have two guidebooks with you at the time, a route book and a bouldering guide, then ... well, that's a gray area, obviously (though you should have thought of that and left one of the guides in the car, shouldn't you?).

In reply to Coel Hellier:



Correct regarding the start to get established on the route, incorrect if you fall off the higher moves, because on your next attempt, you will have prior knowledge of the moves climbed, and therefore it cannot logically be onsight anymore - it will then fall into 'working/ground up.

In reply to Goucho:


But then that applies if you climb up, placing gear, then retreat to the ground for a rest (without weighting gear). By all the traditions this is allowed under "on sight" trad rules.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Not in my book it's not, thats 'yo-yoing/working a route without weighting the rope, and certainly not what I'd call an onsight. By down climbing back to the ground, you are getting a complete 'terra firma' rest you wouldn't be able to get en-route,

Down climbing to a better resting position, is ok, and shouldn't blow the onsight.

Maybe if there was a more straightforward and rigid classification as to what constitutes a true onsight, it would remove all the grey areas altogether?

In reply to Goucho:


If it was a two-pitch route, would you allow down-climbing to a spacious belay ledge?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

A spacious belay ledge is the same as the ground, so no, I'd still class it as 'working' the pitch, not onsighting it.

In reply to mike123:
"any landing you can walk away from is a good landing"

There's an extra line to this

Any landing where they can reuse the plane is a GREAT landing

It's what my dad (ww2 RAF) was taught

In reply to Goucho:


How about a not-so-spacious belay ledge?

Anyhow, I might suggest that yours is a minority opinion on this. I'd always understood trad ethics as allowing down-climbing to the ground. It then became a bit less clear with the popularity of bouldering and of high-balling grit routes above mats, where "onsight" meant something different.

In reply to Coel Hellier:




At the end of the day,I suppose it doesn't really matter. My starting this thread was just to see exactly how 'defined' styles were, and as per the many other threads on the subject, it appears to not be as well defined as some people think it is? I'll stick with the simple definition I've known for the longest - after all, I'm a simple person

In reply to Goucho:

I'm so glad that my own ethics don't worry about the on-sight and my lack of ability means that no one else cares

In reply to Goucho:

Kind of makes this thread pointless then? Much like the one we had about this just a few weeks ago, arguing about exactly the same things...

Andrew (also a simple person) :P

In reply to Goucho:

I know this is kind of obvious, but you did what you did, you know? This argument is just about the words we use toi convey what it was that we did to other people. The purpose of those is solely to convey meaning efficiently to whoever you're speaking to. There's no point in arguing about what they mean or should mean, or whether modern climbers have gone soft counting this or that as this or the other thing.

You do whatever you do. If anyone cares what that was, they can ask you.

jcm

In reply to tom84:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=33

In reply to tlm:

good find

In reply to Goucho:

Right then you lot see if ye can help me with this then. .
There's a few routes in the woods at Wharncliffe where I've soloed up n then found it's too greasy or green to happily continue. There's a lot that are not well travelled. I've got all my life to do em and as I'm usually on my own, I'll climb down n leave it for another day. What's the crack here? If I come back n do it first time (days, months, years later) what's that? Have i lost the onsight? No one else'll clean em so (hypothetically if I was stupidly optimistic enough to have to do it again does that count as working a route:?)

In reply to adi bryant:

Under the "attempt is only over if you weight the rope" definition it seems like it is pretty much impossible to lose an onsight when soloing.

In reply to adi bryant:


If you try something, reach a high point, and then down climb, when you come back another day to try it again, by default it must be your second or third etc try, therefore how can you class it as either 'first time', or onsight? You are in fact 'working' the route, so when you succeed, it is a 'Headpoint'.

This whole argument of 'if you don't weight the rope', you don't loose the onsight - no matter how many times you come back - is completely contradictory to the term 'onsight'. It's like classifying 'failing' on a route, as 'deferred success'.

In reply to adi bryant:

The correct answer is that no, you wouldn't have blown the onsight. Making sound mountaineering judgements like deciding to downclimb and save the attempt for another day is very much part of onsight climbing.

Tom is right - until you attempt the route on lead and fall/lower off/dog your way up, you won't have lost the onsight. Any solo without pre-knowledge will be an onsight solo, however this doesn't really matter too much - when soloing you have more important things to think about than which style of ascent you can claim!

In reply to adi bryant:

Most solos come under one of two brackets:

Onsight solo - you haven't led, seconded, worked the route on a rope or previously soloed the route.

Repeat/Headpoint - you have done one or more of the above.

In reply to Michael Gordon:


So basically, as long as you don't fall, or weight the rope, you can keep coming back, as many times as you like, getting higher and higher, until on your tenth attempt six months later, you finally succeed, and it's still classed as onsight!!!!

The lunatics really have taken over the asylum!

In reply to Goucho:


Quite so.

In reply to Michael Hood:

You left out ball-pointing

Which is writing up routes you haven't actually done

In reply to JJL:



As long as you haven't written up the entire route before, you can still claim the onsight.

In reply to Goucho:

I am with Goucho but if most people's thoughts are he's wrong can we have another term added?

One where you turn up at a crag open a guidebook pick a route you haven't done or know anything about, have a look at it and climb it in one go, first time, with out jumping off, ( because you cant do it first go?) or placing gear and down climbing having a rest and set off relaxed with knowledge of what's to come and a top rope to your last high point, or buggering off and coming back to it days, months later.

In general I don't care how people discribe or write up their climbs, I don't feel the need to write up climbs, or tick a guide book, but if the terms are there to express how the climb was done then first go, ground up is a better way then coming back down and trying again?

I'd like to put forward on-slight for all those grey areas that come up it's nearly an onsight but not quite? It could cover falling off before you have any gear in, lots of chalk so you can easily find the good holds, advice about a route that turns out to be not 100% right.

In reply to Goucho: You forgot to mention the repeated controlled jumping off from increasing heights including one that broke an ankle resulting in a 3 month break and then finally succeeding and it still being onsight.

Also, some people seem to think that if you fall off and hit the deck without weighting the rope, then the onsight is still preserved. One justification being that it's difficult to differentiate where the line is between a fall and a jump (when you know you're about to fall).

I think that the correct term for all of this shenanigans would be ground-up, or maybe ground-down

You're right about the lunatics.

In reply to Goucho:



I dunno, I reckon the lunatics will have taken over the asylum when a soloist who decides that today is not the day for whatever he/she is trying doesn't back down for fear of losing somebody's definition of "onsight"...

More generally, whatever definitions are used, I don't think climbing back to the ground for a rest diminishes the "quality" of a subsequent ascent in any way whatsoever, any more than reversing back to a ledge - in many cases it's the only sensible tactic for a given route. Of course you've got "beta" for the second attempt (and maybe a top-rope for part of the route if you've placed gear) but you've earned that beta through your own skill and effort, and not through "cheating" means.

Rick

In reply to Rick Sewards:

You can't protect idiots from their own idiocy.


Nothing wrong with any of this - climb a route how you want to - just don't call it onsight, when common sense and logic dictates it no longer is - irrespective of today's confused and plainly silly revised definition.

In reply to Michael Hood:





Modern climbing terminology, devised by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Spike Milligan

In reply to ecrinscollective:

The fact is that onsight is a prized style of ascent so folk naturally use whatever tactics are available to them in order to make them more likely to succeed on it. For a lot of steep routes, climbing up to get in the first couple of bits of gear then reversing to the ground again before blasting through after a rest is just good tactics. I do wonder if some folk spend their time downclimbing to hang off jugs a foot off the ground just because they want to preserve their pure 'ground-up'?

In reply to Michael Gordon:
Here's a scenario?

You go for an onsight of London Wall in front of an admiring audience. You get half way up, and find yourself running out of strength (a common problem on this route, and the reason a lot of people fail on it).

So, you down climb (in the real world you wouldn't, you'd lower off your last gear, but hey, stick with me) to the bottom. You then have a nice long rest, have a fag, have a drink, have a couple of sandwiches. Then about an hour later, fully rested and recharged you get back on the route, and start climbing again.

First half is not to bad this time, because you've got a nice top rope, and of course, you know all the moves. You get to the top this time, and as you stand there, you punch your hands in the air, and shout out "Yes! I've onsighted London Wall!!!"

How many of your adoring spectators will give you a round of applause and shout up "Great Onsight Dude!", and how many will shake there heads, tut, and turn away?

Yet according to today's definition of onsight, it would have been.

All I can say, is if you're one of the people who would applaud it as an onsight, then you're probably someone who given a choice between screwing Susan Boyle or Penelope Cruz - or if your a girl, Eric Pickles or Piers Brosnan - would choose Susan Boyle and Eric Pickles!

In reply to Goucho:

It's an interesting scenario, but as you say, one which is not going to happen. If you run out of strength half-way up that route you're not going to manage the downclimb.

If someone did do this I think onlookers might be impressed (and slightly amused) that the climber made the route much more difficult than they needed to! Downclimbing is definitely not always an advantage.

In reply to Goucho:

Excellent, Gouch - a red herring to pursue!

Bearing in mind that, if necessary, you can spend all day shaking out and recovering at the half-height holds, I can't imagine somebody still too pumped to finish the route being able to reverse that desperate lower crack without falling off! Whereafter the subsequent glorious ascent is, of course, a redpoint - or a yo-yo if you don't pull the ropes (and gear?).

In reply to Goucho:

Of course by only focussing on extreme cases you can make your views sound reasonable. The problem is that by throwing out the bathwater you end up throwing out the baby too.

There's no denying that stepping down a move or several moves - whether to a good hold, a ledge or the ground - is 'best practice' climbing as we know it. It may be very impressive to read a whole route correctly from the ground in advance, or to climb it using a really bad sequence because the holds weren't as you expected, but that's not what good climbing means to most people. Good climbing involves forays above and retreats for a rethink before committing. It involves recognising when you don't feel like giving something a real go that day - for any reason - and so retreating to try it instead on another day. Good climbing is what the terms Flash and Onsight evolved to describe.

Of course you could seek to adapt their usage, but given that such terms are important to many climbers wishing to measure their achievements that would effectively mean climbers denying themselves some of the ordinary and intelligent choices available during an ascent. Your new definition of good climbing would end up seeing you hanging onto a jug to rest just inches from the floor, or being passed a cup of tea while stood on a boulder at the start rather than getting the tea yourself - you'd have been laughed at heartily by Puttrell, Brown and Fawcett! Climbing terms should reflect good practice climbing, rather than seeking to change what we see as good practice climbing to fit the straitjacket of overly rigid terminology.

I don't think anyone has ever called an ascent onsight after hurting themselves while decking from it so hypothetical quirks of the current definition have never really caused a problem in practice. On the other hand I doubt there's ever been a fall-free ascent of any boulder-start HVS 6b by a genuinely HVS climber, so (bearing in mind the Adjectival grade is for an Onsight lead) adopting what seems obvious from your extreme case misrepresentation would certainly require wholesale regrading of bouldery routes.

In reply to Ian Parsons:


Yes, in attempt to continue to urinate in a strong south westerly, I have disappeared up my own rear end


And I used the wrong route to try and illustrate my case also. I' shall retire to my shed, and drink wine for a while

In reply to john arran:

So saying that I don't consider a route to have been onsighted, when there have been previous attempts on previous days, is wrong? Ah well, so be it!

In reply to john arran: However the definitions in their common usage today make no distinction between the climber who turns up with no beta and climbs the route first go, no falls etc, and the climber who jumps down from the boulder problem start a couple of times, downclimbs from halfway and then comes back 3 months later and after a couple more jumps gets up the whole thing.

Surely the first is the better example of good climbing although both would be onsight.

The real problem is that there are so many nuances of style and only a few words used to classify them, so if we use very narrow definitions for the classifications, there are loads of nuances that are undefined, and if we use very wide definitions, they lose their usefuleness.

The only answer is to have every ascent filmed from 3 angles with the footage being sent to a panel to determine the correct classification - or maybe (where it matters) just a complete description of what was done - as per R&W's flash of Freerider.

In reply to Goucho:



That should work; when all else fails - dehydrate!

In reply to Goucho:

For me personally if I have to jump off, from any height I wouldn't claim an onsight. If I can climb back down to the ground I would consider that legit for an onsight as long as I didn't untie the ropes and didn't spend more than a couple minutes on the ground thinking about what to do next. If I've got time for a fag and a sandwich or anything else I wouldn't do at a good rest mid route then it's not onsight for me. Equally I would still claim an onsight if I slipped off the first foot hold before my other foot had left the ground but if I missed a starting dyno I wouldn't.
It comes down to what you personally feel is honest I guess. My test is think of my most strictly ethical climbing friend - would I feel comfortable and honest in telling them I had onsighted a route? If not then it's not an onsight.

In reply to Goucho:

or if your a girl, Eric Pickles or Piers Brosnan

Are boys not allowed to onsight Pickles or Brosnan?

In reply to Michael Hood:




Sums it up very nicely.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

I understand that the style of asscent is Important to the climber, I am really really into the style I climb something, if I kept falling of the start, or walked away for a long period of time I wouldn't call it an onsight, when I say I don't care I mean if some one used those tactics and claims an onsight or use's other worse methods it's up to them.

People know in their heart how they climbed it. Proof of the pudding is in the eating and talking a good climb is one thing, but it comes down to climbing not talking.

I did believed that onsight included first attempt, with out coming off the route, with a few small grey areas like foot sipping of the start holds, thanks to Michael for point out the facts, I am now cool with the fact this includes the tactics mentioned, but it feels a little less special.

In reply to Goucho:

Everyone seems to agree that the ideal is to climb the route first go with no prior knowledge and no messing about, and I think everyone is agreed in calling that "onsight". After that, the other categories depend on some fairly subtle nuances and there people seem to disagree widely how important they are, so it seems to be impossible to arrive at a consensus.

The fact is, it doesn't matter - no one besides you, and perhaps your mates, gives a toss how you climb a particular route. You can apply the terms as you wish according to your own interpretation of style and the importance you place on particular aspects. If you want to claim bragging rights among your mate then it probably helps if you can all agree on the terms, but beyond that it is of no significance, unless you are one of the handful of top-end climbers whose routes get reported. However in those cases the ascent is often written up in some detail, and perhaps videoed, so there is other information besides a simple label from which to judge the style.

I recently made a repeat ascent of a route I last climbed 40 years ago. I logged it as an onsight, on the grounds that I had no recollection of the previous ascent and gained no advantage from it. Some purists might object, but for me that is a valid assessment, and it should be of no concern to anyone else.

In reply to Howard J:

Judging by the comments on this thread, that is plainly not the case.

After that, the other categories depend on some fairly subtle nuances and there people seem to disagree widely how important they are, so it seems to be impossible to arrive at a consensus.

The whole point of giving something a definition, is to avoid individual interpretations and subjectivity isn't it? If you're going to have a particular style open to different interpretations and 'grey areas' then don't call it a definition.


It's nothing to do with bragging rights, it's about what constitutes a logical definition of onsight, and some of the 'interpretations of onsight illustrated on this thread (and others) is not logical.'


Yet you remember that you have previously climbed it? If you want to claim it as an onsight, then go for it, but you're only fooling yourself. However, maybe this is a good way to add another contrivance in order to claim an illegitimate onsight - if you've done the route before, but forgotten the details, you can still claim the onsight!!!

We could call this style of ascent an Alzheimer's!

In reply to Goucho:

Yes, I remember the fact that I have previously climbed it. I have no recollection of whether I found it hard or easy, and in any event how I climbed it as a fit but inexperienced 20 year old with 1970s gear has no bearing on how I would find it as a slightly overweight but experienced 60 year old laden down with a modern rack. I had no recollection of where the route went, so it didn't help with route finding. My experience of the climb on the day was just as if I'd walked up to it for the first time. So far as I am concerned that is "onsight".

My perspective is that it is the nature of the experience which is relevant. There have been other occasions when I've only realised I've done a climb before when I came to log it in UKC. I'm not fooling myself when I log these as "onsights", and my logbook clearly shows if it has been done before. If I make a repeat ascent which benefits from prior knowledge I record it as such.

However my real point is that it doesn't matter whether you think my claim is "illegitimate" - with the greatest respect, your opinion is of no concern to me, and how I choose to record a climb should be of no interest to you.

It really only matters where significant ascents are being claimed, and in these cases there is usually a lot more information available about the style of the ascent than a mere headline label. In all other cases it is only for one's own purposes and it's entirely up to the individual climber to decide in how much detail and by what criteria they decide.