Playing hooky from the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show going on in Salt Lake City for a day Sasha DiGiulian made the trip down to the cobbled overhangs of Maple Canyon where, according to her 8a scorecard, she onsighted (or not, see the comments) Toxic Turkey (5.13c) and redpointed Wyoming Sheep Shagger (5.13d) and Millenium (5.14a). More on her blog.
Productive Day At Maple Canyon For Sasha DiGiulian
Posted In: Asides, News, Sport Climbing
Climbers: Sasha DiGiulian
Areas: Maple Canyon
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28 Responses to Productive Day At Maple Canyon For Sasha DiGiulian
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Okay…so we all know Sasha is a very talented climber…I’m throwing this out there because a few questions are swirling around in my head. Has anyone ever questioned Sasha about her definition of an onsight. I have been to both the Red and Maple many times and in all honesty even if I wanted to onsight Toxic or Ohama I couldn’t…simply for the fact that I have ALWAYS seen people on them. When she sent Ohama she was being belayed by Magnus…now I’m not questioning her ethics but it’s hard to imagine that late at night while nestled up in a nice cabin in the Red that the conversation never came up about the pacing of the route or key holds ect. Sasha is a seasoned climber and little pieces of beta have a huge impact on someone who has really honed in on their skills…Just like with Toxic…okay looking up and seeing someone chilling in the knee bar or punching it through the crux section makes an enormous difference to a profession climber…much more so than to the average climber. I guess the only reason I’m questioning this is I recently read an interview with Sasha and it asked her the simple question about coaching and her outlook on this topic…She stated that she thought coaches were unnecessary and she trained on her own…the problem is she Forgot to mention that her WHOLE climbing career since she was very young she had several coaches…this is a little bizarre to me… Granted while you are a product of your own hard work the inability to recognize what has helped shape you as a climber is a character flaw…I’m just wondering if she ever Forgets about seeing someone climbing on a route or key pieces of beta she has been given…all the while claiming the onsight…
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You are making far too many assumptions.
In reference to her “inability to recognize what has helped shape [her] as a climber,” you could be completely incorrect. You are assuming that A: she is stupid, B: she is ungrateful, C: she is just a kid, and therefore can’t be trusted to really know what is going on around her, or D: she is all of the above. I cannot think of anything she has said or done that would give the impression she is any of those things.
So unless you are making one of those baseless assumptions, then obviously she has weighed the importance of her coaches in past years, and is of the opinion that they contributed less to her development as a climber than she did herself. Just because she may have had a coach in the past doesn’t mean that the coach was helpful. She has, after all, recently made a huge breakthrough, and without the help of a coach.
The same argument applies to your comments about her idea of an onsight. “Has anyone ever questioned Sasha about her definition of an onsight?” It sounds to me like you are again making some (as far as I know) baseless assumptions. Assuming that she actually holds a different definition of onsight only for herself, thereby making it easier to “onsight” routes, means that you are assuming that Sasha is either very dishonest (to lie about her accomplishments) or very, very naive (to believe that her definition is acceptable). As I see no reason to give either of those two assumptions any merit, it disappoints me a little that you are questioning the legitimacy someone else’s accomplishments for no apparent reason.
Happy climbing!
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Nuance is clearly jealous, likely sexist, not-at-all congratulatory. What are you the paparazzi? We have all had “coaches” screaming at us, giving us beta when we don’t necessarily want it, taking credit for our achievements, as if yelling “relax, breathe” made the difference on a send. To give credit where it is not due would be dishonest. Obviously Sasha figured things out for herself and excelled beyond her coaches abilities. It reminds me of the movie Crouching Tiger, would you expect Jen to give credit to Jade Fox for her kung fu?
It sounds like you are one of many guys who can’t stand seeing a girl crush far beyond anything you will ever be capable of, and so you hate. You criticize her onsighting, her ethics, and probably her diet in other conversations. Fact is you suck.
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The huge jump would in many people’s eyes have much to do with the fact that Magnus had opened her eyes to the global world of climbing…I just think that the inability to recognize that you had SEVERAL coaches throughout your childhood…and how that hasn’t had a tremendous impact on your climbing as an adult is a very arrogant point of view. It seems very hypocritical to me. Regarding the next issue…Sasha has received global recognition regarding her accents and I am questioning the standard of which we report information within the climbing community. In no other sport can an althete make claims without any investigation or the inquiry about the facts behind them…it happens all the time in climbing and when the stakes are becoming more and more pronouced including 6 figure endorsement deals…I think that some sort of resistance to the printed word is at times healthy and needed. I know how talented Sasha is and have no doubt her ability to be able to climb at the level claimed…I just think that with the amount of media attention, information available online, and overabundance of people utilizing the climbing areas it makes it very difficult to onsight any of the major trade routes. Oh, one more thing…I just looked at her score card on 8a…if you have been on a route several years ago and sent it on your first go this year that would make it 2nd try…not 1st try …it’s little things like this that are strange to me about the need to post and make headlines…Why not just put 2 nd try… That’s what it was…
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i was there Saturday, and yes, she did have some key running beta, mostly from women her size, which was cool to watch. if one wants to call it a beta-flash instead of a true flash, that is only a discussion that matters for for fart-sniffers in these forums, not 8a.nu scorecards. wyoming sheep shagger was a flash as well, and it used to be called 14a.
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Which route are you referring to with regard to the “key running beta”?
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Gunit…Thank you for your account of the situation…The problem with this is she claimed to ONSIGHT the route and that is a HUGE difference…sure flash / beta flash no big deal…but the difference between that and an onsight is MONUMENTAL…I hope others will see how big of a deal this is when the only thing we have in this sport is the integrity of the climbers word…It’s quite disturbing actually to think about especially when so much is being gained by climbers in this very congested industry…
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One more thing…In regards to Toxic Turkey…did Sasha wear knee pads and take the no hands rest at the beginning of the route…Here’s my point…I am an onsight climber…I have NEVER put on a knee pad with the assumption their was a knee bar to possibly find on a route… When climbing onsight you climb…looking for resting position is part of it but hunting for kneebars isn’t a very efficient way to tackle any route when onsighting. The knee bar on Toxic Turkey is very painful and in all honesty is extremely limited if you don’t wear a kneepad…but if you saw someone on the route and realized a kneepad was a good idea then unfortunately the onsight is gone and you have entered the FLASH zone…Still an incredible achievement but very different… I’m just tired of so many people making claims and not being able to answer a few simpe questions about the ascents…
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This is a subject I’m planning on visiting in a future post but perhaps it’s better to use the SOFT moniker for any first try sends:
Sent
On
First
Try
Onsighting is obviously a worthy goal but as Nuance points out (and has been debated in many other instances) the line between an onsight and a flash is often blurry at best.
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Nuance makes a few good points. Sometime claiming an onsight looks better to sponsors than a flash does. Ethics and honesty are huge parts of this sport. If she did have beta, and knows the real definition of “onsight” she lied!
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i’ve seen a lot of strong climbers come through pipedream and saturday was the second most impressive display of rock climbing i’ve ever seen up there, next to when chris sharma onsighted t-rex (14a/b) and divine fury (14b), and then proceeded to try to up-climb sheep shagger (13d), then from there down-climb millenium (13d/14a), then from there up-climb divine fury (he didn’t quite manage it).
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chuck odette belayed sasha on toxic turkey. she had no beta, and she was the first person to climb on it on saturday, so there was no one to watch. toxic turkey is a very difficult onsight. it’s very bouldery, it has huge moves, and there are no good rests. for me it is quite solid at 13c, a bit harder than The Madness at the motherlode.
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she rested a few minutes, and then decided to try millenium. i belayed her on it and gave her running beta the whole time. as she was tying in she said to me something along the lines of “i’ll just take here and there to figure out the moves”. wrong. she did it first try and although she did try it a couple years ago (self-admittedly), it was completely obvious to me that she did not remember anything about the route.
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she was on millenium for at least half an hour and came down pretty exhausted, but still managed to do sheep shagger second go afterwards, an incredibly bouldery route which basically took me all summer to do back in 2008. once she clipped the chains of sheep shagger, she continued on the left extension (muttin bustin 14a) but fell partway out.
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based on what i saw saturday i have zero doubt that on-sighting omaha beach was well within her limit and that she’ll continue to stack up 8b+ and maybe even 8c onsights. she is the real deal and i’m super inspired by her progression from even two years ago.
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Thank you Mike for clearing everything up… That makes perfect sense and is impressive indeed. I am happy to think that what is posted is in fact a legitimate post and shows how a simple question and answer dialogue can quickly weed out any uncertainties. Good job Sasha for ruling the cave this weekend…!!!
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There you have it. Thanks for the info Mike. Greatly appreciated.
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apologies for the confusion i seem to have created; i wasn’t there for every bit of every ascent, and i didn;t seem to detract from the day’s event. it was truly impressive to see what the next generation has to bring to the crag.
this next generation of the likes of Sasha and Ondra will re-define climbing, but i don’t think the masses will like it. they will be able to do things while teenagers that can’t be done later in life… just like Olympic-level gymnastics. women in their 30s can’t do a floor routine like a 16 year old and male gymnastis in their 30s can hold an inverted iron cross like they could at 16.
people will train their whole lives (including myself) to pull on the holds she was shaking out on.
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I’m slightly skeptical of Sasha’s definition of onsight. I was at Maple Canyon a couple years ago while she was there at the same time, and was working Toxic while she was working Great Feast, with a lot of other people trying a lot of climbs in the millennium cave. Does she remember watching her friends try the climb? Probably not — I hardly remember the sequence to toxic myself and I tried it numerous times. But she’s a smart girl, and maybe she recognized some of the movement from a couple years ago, perhaps not even being aware of it. I don’t want to invalidate her send though. I just think that the word “onsight”‘s subtitles mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I just think a true onsight is walking up to a climb you’ve never seen before in your life and going for it. For me, it’s a one-drop rule — if you’re not consciously ignoring someone on the climb, or belaying someone on the line, it ain’t the real thing. You still get points for crushing though.
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I was going to just keep this to myself…..To me an onsight means no information about a climb. Yes there’s chalk and tickmarks. To a skilled climber this can make all the difference and it may even void a “pure” onsight; as if there is such a thing. My personal definition is much more reasonable.
What a lot of people dont know about Sprout and Toxic Turkey is that they share the same finish. Sasha warmed up on Sprout that day. Knowledge of the joining section would be key in linking Toxic Turkey. Onsight?
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Hmmm, so based on this info it’s hard to really argue that Toxic Turkey was even a “first go” send if it shares a finish with a route she had just done???
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I blame 8a for making onsights worth so much more.
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Speaking of 8a, her onsight just made her the #1 ranked sport climber in the US male or female. First time that has ever happened. Are the only other americans stronger than her right now Sharma and J-star?
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Depends on how you keep track of things but she is certainly one of the top sport climbers in America right now male or female. Not many others with the consistent number of hard sends that she has this year.
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I’ve never really believed people take their actual points that seriously but I suppose at the top end it does make a difference. I thought it was odd that, for example, onsighting .12a is the same points as redpointing .12d. I guess that makes sense?
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Onsighting 12a is WAY easier than redpointing 12d IMO, I think it is a major flaw in the website. I think a lot of people do take the points seriously. I don’t care about my ranking, but it is nice to compare my points year on year.
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That was sort of my thought but I wasn’t sure what others thought. I care about my points as it relates to comparing things through the years, but I’d never really given much thought to how much more points “checking the black box” gets you. Maybe I need to go back and retroactively onsight some of my flash sends 🙂
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I guess it all depends on your strengths. I find redpointing 12d second go WAY easier than onsighting 12a. But I’m an onsight turkey.
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I guess I’d just say don’t get sucked down into the quagmire of nitpicking terminology and “ethics” – it’s all just wanking. Instead focus on something useful, like devising a training plan for how to be able to walk up to an unfamiliar cliff at 8000 feet elevation in 90 degree heat after a plane ride across eight time zones, tie into a rope 5 times in 5 hours and walk away with 13a, 13c, 13d, and 13d/14a.
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I get your point, and at this point I’d be psyched to drop 2 full grades off those numbers and repeat that feat. However I think it’s at least somewhat important for things to be clear given the circumstances. It doesn’t matter if I take liberties with my definition of onsight vs flash vs I did that route first try having climbed part of it on a previous route, but when pro climbers and sponsorship is involved it seems like a higher degree of scrutiny is warranted.
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the line between onisght and flash is pretty blurry at this point, just like ‘pinkpointing’ from years ago.
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Barefoot chalkless freesolo is climbing, everything else is a compromise. -Michael Reardon, Return To Sender
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