UKC

Steve McClure, a master of onsight climbing, takes us through his top tips on developing the style and the ethical considerations you may wish to consider...

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Well that's my onsight of always the sun blown

Good article Steve!

Good stuff Steve. 

Top tip: I always make sure to check logbook comments and watch some beta vids on YouTube before going for my onsights. 👍

Wise words from a master.

So what else blows an onsight?

A few specifics I was wondering about…

1) If your belayer shouts things at you (“swap feet”, “put some gear in”, “try the red cam”), does that blow the onsight?

2) You arrive at the route and someone is already on it, you watch them intently or you try not to look but catch glimpses, does that blow the onsight?

3) You head out without a partner to solo some stuff below your limit. You jump on a route and after climbing a significant portion, you decide to back off as the move above is too committing without a rope. You downclimb, completely in control, then come back another day with a belayer and lead the route. Did you blow the onsight?

4) One final scenario. You climb a route a short way, you place some gear and arrive at a very physical move. You downclimb back to the ground, completely in control, take a bit of a rest (never untying) then get back on and make the clean send. Did you blow your onsight?

I would love to get an opinion from the collective on the above. Be that a resounding one-way conclusion or just a discussion around my points.

I really enjoyed the article, thanks Steve!

1. Probably not, unless they've climbed it before or know specific details.

2. No if you catch a glimpse, yes if you watch them climb the route (although this makes more of a difference in shirt cruxy routes than longer wandery routes like right wall).

3,4. No, if you don't fall off or weight the rope, it's all good.

I'd think, not if your belayer has not done the route and is just giving his opinion on what he can see from the ground. There is a good chance his advice might not be particularly helpful anyway unless he knows the route, or unless he is a lot more experienced than you.

Watch them intently? I'd say yes. Catch a glimps? who cares.

No to both 3 & 4 I'd say. I have on some routes climbed to below the crux to warm up and place gear, then reversed to ground and had a 10 minute rest, before leading the route. To me thats an onsight. I climbed from the ground to the top of the crag without weighting the rope and without any prior knowledge apart from what I could gain without weighting the gear. As Steve suggests I have sometimes looked over the top of a route to check the position and size of finishing holds, again I see no problem with that.

3 and 4, no.  You're still good for the onsight 

Some good answers to those questions. In the 'competition' world once leaving the ground you cannot return. Some apply this to sport climbing too. But it seems pretty common practice in trad climbing.

Catching a glance of others on a route by accident probably makes no difference, sneaky glances might help! You probably know if you've gained some helpful knowledge, and so its up to you to be honest.

The article wasn't really about the ethics of what is / isn't onsight. In most cases our efforts are onsight as that is what is presented to us when we reach the cliff, and we have to 'gain' knowledge and arm ourselves with the right equipment to give us an advantage if possible.

Sounds like another article is required!

Knowing that Jonny used a filed down RP will not blow my onsight of Indian Face

3&4: I'm sure that on previous discussions on UKC the consensus was that if you didn't weight the rope you could go up and down as many times as you like, spread over whatever time you like (go home, go abroad, whatever) and it would still be on-sight (presuming you kept all other "criteria") - essentially ground-up with no beta is always on-sight.

However, such an up and down on-sight will probably not feel as satisfying as doing it in a single "attempt" (probably depends on whether you feel you could have done it in a single "attempt").

Also, you'd probably need to get your mate to abseil for the gear if you were taking it out between spaced attempts, and leaving the gear in after pulling the ropes may be a bit of a grey area for trad (ok for sport of course).

Ultimately, unless you're climbing professionally (i.e. sponsored, where your performance may affect your sponsorship, so being clear and honest is important), it comes down to whether you're happy with how you climbed the route, and what anyone else thinks is incidental.

If your belayer shouts things like 'you're looking a bit shaky, pal!', or 'you want to use that cam you left down here!', then that can often blow the onsight. Literally.

If I'm shouting stuff up at you then you probably deserve even more credit for a successful ascent. 

I caused a mate of mine to blow the most successful attempt of a boulder problem he was projecting by shouting something that made him laugh. We were shouting encouragement but that quickly turned to random nonsense. Not my finest moment but utterly hilarious at the same time. The exact words I used cannot be repeated on a public forum. 😆

the most challenging style - "beta sandbag flash"