My friend Mark has this half serious, half joking way of acknowledging something funny or interesting. He’ll say, in a slow, exaggerated way: “I did not know that. I learned something today.”
I found Mark’s words running through my mind a few weeks ago when I read a news report on 8a.nu crediting a climber with onsighting a route that he had previously climbed the first half of. Hmm? How is that even possible? Ignoring all the inherent gray areas related to having prior beta and even what constitutes prior beta, I thought it was relatively well understood that an onsight was only possible when one hadn’t tried a route before.
Apparently not.
You see, in Europe, sport climbing link-ups are fairly common. Two or more routes will exist on one section of a cliff with portions of the wall being shared between the routes. This gives climbers more options for climbing in a small area with the logical downside being that once you have climbed one part of a link-up, you are giving up the ability to onsight any other route that uses parts of that link-up.
Again, apparently not. In the words of Mark: “I did not know that. I learned something today.”
According to the logic presented by 8a.nu in their post, as long as the part of a link-up you’ve done previously is sufficiently easy—one full number grade below the part of the link-up you’re trying to do—then the onsight is still fair game. The logic behind this is that if the part you’ve already done before is easy for you, then it ultimately doesn’t matter and you are still onsighting once you get to the part that is harder.
This, of course, opens up the already gray concept of an onsight to a whole host of slippery slope problems. What if the route is endurance based, how can you discount the “easy” part? What percentage of the route can be shared? If the routes share 95% of the same climbing but the harder line adds a hard boulder problem in the last 10 feet can you onsight a route where only 10 feet of it is actually new climbing? And what about the fact that grades are imprecise at best? What happens when the full route you’re claiming the onsight on gets the inevitable downgrade bringing it within three letter grades of the other link-up? Need I go on?
I griped on Facebook about how I considered this an absurd interpretation of an onsight at the time this news came out. 8a.nu’s Jens Larssen responded with two comments: a) why are you being so extreme and b) all the cool kids are doing it so what other choice do we have? Admittedly, arguing over the minutiae of what is and isn’t an onsight is largely inconsequential, especially in light of what happened in Boston recently, but this is, at best, a weak defense of an illogical position. Onsighting a route you’ve tried a part of before sounds a lot like being “kind of pregnant”. It just doesn’t work. Either it’s your first time trying a route and the onsight is a go (you’re pregnant) or you’ve tried some part of it before and you’re just out for a redpoint burn (not pregnant).
8a.nu even made a of poll to confirm their interpretation of an onsight, and when respondents disagreed with them they admitted defeat made another poll. When that one didn’t work out they played the “the polls have been hacked” card. A similar poll on this site found that 90% of respondents disagreed with 8a’s interpretations—apparently the entire internet has been hacked.
The onsight in question happened at Oliana, a cliff that is apparently no stranger to link-ups. Unless you subscribe to the 8a.nu interpretation of what an onsight is—and, apparently some people do—it seems some of the most recent, much-celebrated onsights at that cliff could be suspect.
Ultimately, there are three takeaways from this story. The first is that as it relates to the reporting of high end climbing news, the concept of an onsight is likely largely dead now if it wasn’t already. The second is that just because all the “hardcore” climbers are doing it doesn’t mean the definition of an onsight has changed1. And finally, my friend Mark is a wise man with impeccable taste in bourbon.
What say you?
- I mean, I’d be pretty psyched if all those same climbers decided that you could count a redpoint as long as you get to the last draw without falling, but that doesn’t mean they get to set the rules. ↩
I’m with you, I’m not sure that the wider community would accept that the rules of onsight have been re-written (if indeed they have). It’s not unknown for 8a.nu to rewrite things to make themselves happy and Jens can go on epic benders sometimes. Accepting it as a fait accompli merely because it’s been practised by others (no matter how ‘cool’ they may be) does not make it inevitable, it’s just a lack of willingness to engage with the issue.
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There’s nothing to be discussed.
Onsighting = being pregnant.100% onsight or 0% onsight.
89% onsight not possible is. I don’t care if it’s 10 feet of 7a linked to a mile of 9c+.
Jens lives in his own universe.
I declare this topic closed for ever.
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It’s called an onsight because you sent the route on sight. on first sight. it’s not called an “after-partial-attempt-on-the-easier-bits.”
climbing has few enough black and white definitions, but I think we can be firm on this one.
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Slightly poor word choice on my part. To clarify, I do not mean to imply that an onsight is valid only after the first sight, but was trying to over-emphasize the fact that it can’t be touched.
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Next time I get even a little pumped before the crux on an onsight attempt I’m just going to traverse to the next bolt line and call it a link-up of a “new” line. This would save my onsight attempt of the initial line for another day, right!!?
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^Sarcasm. But on a serious note… if you applied the aforementioned rules of an onsight (which we all seem to deem incorrect), would you be able to then call it a flash rather than an onsight?
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Keeping the definition of an on-sight stable is important because on-sight climbing is a totally unique type of athletic performance. While other sports have performances that closely resemble a red point; in all of sport there is nothing that matches the cognitive, emotional, and physical structure of an on-sight. When we go for an on-sight we are attempting something that no other athletes have the opportunity, or the privilege to try.
We should value and celebrate the uniqueness of on-sighting and realized how fortunate we are to have it. It lacks intellectual and athletic integrity to try to change the definition of an on-sight.
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I tuned out all the minutiae back when the phrase “pinkpoint” was getting tossed around, so this kind of confused me. Did you climb it completely in the first try without falling? Great! Onsight! Did you weight the rope at any point during that climb? No onsight.
F&*king egos. And for *me* to say that, you know it’s out of hand.
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Onsight = not knowing ANYthing about the route. Problem solved. Real question: Do these count as flashes?
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I would still say no
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The “not knowing ANYthing about the route” stipulation is somewhat problematic in the modern climbing era. I think that this is a bit of an overstatement about the criteria neccesary for an ascent to be an onsight. They is definately a grey area of how much pre-information you are allowed before giving a route an onsight attempt. Surely, you should be allowed to know the name and grade of the route, before the onsight is spoiled and demoted to a flash. How about other sorts of information that might be found on a basic topo: the number of bolts, the length of a route, etc? This all seems pretty reasonable, but by the fairly extreme criteria that you named, they are information about the route, so…
Some circumstances are more grey How about if you once saw a poster with a picture of a person on the route…does that ruin the onsight? Or if the guidebook describes the route as a “crimpfest”..this is information that might make you more prepared for the route, no? To me, it seems that knowing something about the route beforehand is inevitable. As such, we have to accept that some level of information can be had, and it is still an onsight. I think that the line is drawn between a flash and an onsight when you have specific information about how to climb the route. General information about difficulty, length, type of climbing..these are unvoidable. My point here is that we can’t “solve” these debates by taking an extremist position that is shown to be absurd after minimal examination.
As to Narc’s original prompt, it sounds like that ascent was not properly an onsight. It seems like a popular phrase for 8a.nu users is “linkup, 1st go”. This essentially describes that situation. It definately isn’t an onsight, but it isn’t exactly a redpoint either; it is it’s own thing…and in some cases can be quite respectable.
Still, even here there is some grey area. What if there are two routes that start up the same class 3 ramp for 10 feet, and then diverge before the 1st bolt. Surely climbing one of these wouldn’t spoil the onsight of the other, even though they share some (stupidly easy) terrain. We can’t use a slippery slope argument here, becuase that puts us back into an absurd, extremist position; we have to accept some degree of grey area, judgement calls.
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I think JM is 100% CORRECT. I dont have too much to add, but I want to reiterate the point just to drive home how much i think it is true! Let’s go back to square one. Why do we like onsighting?? We like onsighting because it is a quantification of difficulty that we can hope to achieve ourselves or that we can appreciate when we see others achieve it. The word onsight doesn’t matter at all in comparison to the difficulty of what was achieved, it is just a way of making that difficulty more tangible. Onsighting a route after blindfolding yourself in the parking lot of a crag youve never been to or heard about before and having your friends walk you to the base of a route and help you tie in before removing the blindfold is likely far more difficult than trying to onsight the same route after scoping it with binoculars and gathering any other legal but beneficial info about it. It is also perfectly possible that some routes are much more difficult to onsight than others because of sequences that are more difficult to read or crux moves that are lower percentage. Does variability in the difficulty of onsighting different routes mean that we should have a different onsight rating of difficulty for each route??? Sounds ridiculous, but if we are seriously interested in quantifying difficulty exactly, then yes of course we should have an onsight difficulty scale. While I think that Jens should not be given much credit in his argument because his answers on FB do not show any meaningful understanding of the issue (to jens: if you want other people to respect your assertions, you gotta back em up buddy. In this case, you failed miserably and it makes want to not support your view. However, I will be doing just that) I think his view is that what this guy did at Oliana is basically as hard as though he had never tried any of the moves on the route before. If we really want to test the shit out of whether or not jens assertion is meaningful, we can have 1 million people try to onsight the climb who have never tried any of the moves before and another 1 million people that have done the shared moves on the climb attempt to do the new variant ground up first try. Assuming each one million climbers average out to the same phenotype and ability level, if a relatively equal proportion of climbers in each group has success, then it is probably reasonable to conclude that both methods of doing the climb are equal in difficulty. If both are equal in difficulty, then what does it matter if they tried some of the moves before, and what does it matter what we call it???
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I’m in agreement with most on this post. Let’s keep onsights pure and precisely as the name suggests. If not, we will simply lose onsights since everyone will wonder if it was an onsight or the new interpretation of an onsight. To me, these sends as you’ve described them would not count as flashes either. Folks I know and respect in the Dirty South would simply say, “yeah, I sent it first burn, but I had worked part of it already.”
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The real problem is that people are using the wrong vocabulary in order to pad their ego. You have to use a phrase that is more vague so you don’t seem like a liar. I like to use the phrase “first try”. In fact, every route I have ever done was “first try”… I did the route the first time I tried, everything else was just a beta burn. See, its easy.
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Yep
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Well what we have here is an argument in which one side is realistically speaking and willing to admit that sometimes climbing ethic is black and white even if it isn’t in their own favor, and another side who psyched themselves out on something that isn’t a thing and got butthurt when the entire climbing community told them they had misinterpreted a simple term.
By all means, you may have still onsighted- but you onsighted a *link up section*. Not an entire route you have already done… Just make the distinction that you had no problem onsighting a .14 something *link up*, trust me, everyone will still be just as impressed AND you won’t sound like a whiny little redacted when someone informs you can’t climb something for the first time if you have already climbed it before… .. .
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There’s so much gray area in most of the climbing world and also the sport has a strong independence/non conformist streak. But there are a few terms which are clearly (even for climbers) black and white. Onsight, Flash and Free Solo are three of those terms that come to mind. They correspond to clear/easily definable activities. Onsight- leading a climb from bottom to top w/o falling and with no foreknowledge or touching of holds. Flash – an onsight but with some non-tactile knowledge (video, friend giving beta, etc) but no previous touching of holds. Free solo – free climbing a route with no rope, protection, or points of aid.
I think degrading the value of terms like those by allowing “gray” areas to evolve just demeans historic ascents and demeans true onsights, flashes or free solos. You only get 1 shot to onsight/flash a route, so plan ahead and be thoughtful– if 5 routes share the same start chose between the five and make your first go count. For onsighting or flashing, I personally, don’t agree with any downclimbing shenanigans either. You leave the ground and your onsight/flash hangs in the balance.
There has to be a basic, community-wide understanding of some simple terms. We’ve already got more than enough: “I flashed it first go on my redpoint attempt (after 3 days of work and 15 non-redpoint attempts etc.). Otherwise how can we communicate amazing accomplishments to each other? And, honestly, Jens/8a bears some responsibility for all this confusion by creating/running a website where a part of the site involves logging/publicizing climbing achievements and comparing those achievements to others in a rating “game.” “Games” have to have “rules,” too. If that make Jens uncomfortable because some climbers either don’t understand the definitions or chose to make their own- it’s still his job as a climbing news editor to make some attempt to verify what he publicizes when talking about “newsworthy” onsights or flashes by top climbers. The definitions apply to all of us.
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Hypothetical situation. Two routes, let’s call them route “a” and “b” share the same start, “c”. If I’m trying to onsite “a” and I climb up “c”, down climb back to the ground for a rest, then try again and get to the top of “a” without falling, that’s considered an onsite. But, what if I changed my mind the second time up and when I reached the top of “c”, decided to finish on “b”. Wouldn’t that still be an onsite? And, if so, isn’t that pretty much the same as claiming an onsite of “b” if one had previously onsited “a”?
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No. There was not a single onsight in your post. You can’t touch the ground after starting.
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I don’t subscribe to the idea of a down climb saving an onsignt so I would say no
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Down climbing to the ground is just a really controlled fall. Down climbing to a ledge on the other hand…
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*controlled fall from the last(first) move.
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Nice article. I agree with an onsight having to be the first attempt of the whole route. I guess the same has to be said for flashing. What if you’d do a boulder problem standstart of 6A and than do the sitstart 7A first go? Still, it would be nice to somehow show you did do the harder part first go.
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So just say “I did the harder part first go”. Pretty simple.
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A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. As long as you know what they did (onsighting the second part of a link-up, which is the hard part, even though they had done the first…) then why does it matter? They told you what they have done, right? They are being honest about it, correct? As long as they have the qualifier on their accomplishment, then they can leave the value judgement on what they have done up to you and the rest of society. If they are a pro, you can support their accomplishment with dollars.
As someone who climbed in Minnesota at Red Wing and Willow River, there were alot of link-ups. Or bouldering within Jamie Emerson’s sphere of influence for some years there were strange sit-start crap which detracted from the climbing for me (not to say he was responsible for the starts, only the police state mindset of where a problem started, even if the crux was 30 feet off the ground highball V10).
Now, nice places and people aside (especially Jamie Emerson), I feel perfectly fine saying that I’ve climbed Revenge (V6) while using the jug crack for the right hand, or saying that I onsighted “In The Pink” (5.11a) even though there is 25 feet of 5.7 slab shared with “Quickdraw Goes to Hollywood” (Red Wing is the greatest crag on earth). And if the fact that I did any of it matters to someone, I have no problem qualifying that I used the crack or had done the slab before.
But doing stuff with pre-hung draws never seems to bother anyone, when clipping may be the hardest thing on a route…
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I think part of the issue is that people are not necessarily being clear about what they’ve done
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As their are no negatively rated comments I take it there are probably not many European climbers posting here..
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Thank goodness for Chris Sharma.
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Jens and his site are euro-trash. The fact that pro’s take it and his opinions seriously is absolutely appalling.
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In an area where there’s tons of link-ups, I think it’s reasonable to have a term meaning “I did the hard part onsight.” In the spirit of such useful and mildly contemptuous terms as “french freeing”, I suggest “Spanish onsighting.” Although maybe “Jensighting” has a certain zing to it.
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Very funny and I LOVE IT!
I totally just jens-sighted that route: Meaning I’ve climbed half of it before, had all the draws hanging, had three draws pre-clipped, and down-climbed from below the crux three times!
We could even apply jens-sighting to bouldering- like where you touched all the holds first, did the notorious “American Crouch Start,” and dabbed a little bit.
What about jens-flashing where you watched a video of the route but were drunk at the time, did the route like 10 years ago and can’t remember it, had someone with a laser pointer jugging the route next to the climber providing Golf Channel quality beta!
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I climbed Biographie first try, no beta (what’s this Big Up you speak of? I’m not Jamaican!), but I walked up the same 1st class hike as when I’ve climbed at that crag before, so no onisght. Bummer. Dialing in that approach saved my legs just enough for me to nab the first… “linkup, 1st go”? Goodbye sponsors, hello cat food
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Lol funny post, Narc, and an excellent topic. Just wanted to chime in with the sentiment that as long as you are honest about what you have done, your all good. If you want to compare accomplishments, however, you HAVE to be using the same definitions for onsight/flash/free solo, etc. Awesome discussion.
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OK, I can’t resist. People suggesting that the definition of “onsight” does not admit of gray area or borderline cases are surely overstating the case (though I agree it is an abuse of the term to apply it to someone who has already climbed half the route). A component of the definition mentioned twice was “no knowledge of the route.” But surely some knowledge is OK:
1. You can know the name of the route.
2. You can know the grade of the route.
3. You can know whether the route is sport, mixed, or trad.
4. You can know that people say it’s a hard onsight.
5. You can know what type of anchors you’ll find.
6. You can know who the first ascentionist is.
7. You can know that it follows the left bolt line after the fourth bolt.
8. You can know whether you need say, a 60 or 70 meter rope.
But can you know these things?
8. The number of bolts?
9. That it’s sustained and non-cruxy?
10. That there’s a loose refrigerator block near the top so please don’t grab that?
11. That the line branches left after the big ledge?
12. That the first bolt on the left branch after the ledge is around a corner and you can’t see it?
13. Can you know that several onsighters have fallen off near the top?
I suspect that people’s answers to 8-10 will vary from one another, and from themselves depending on other aspects of the situation the questions are about. Heck, some people probably disagree with me about 1-8!
And about the no-touching-holds thing:
14. Suppose I’m tying my shoe before starting and lose my balance and grab the plainly visible, shoulder-height starting jug to keep from falling down the hillside. I have to let go to finish tying my shoes and to tie in to the rope. Onsight blown?
15. Suppose as a 5.6 climber I accidentally put my hands on the shoulder-high starting crimps of some 5.13 and try but can’t pull off the ground (I was trying to get on the neighboring 5.7). Years later, as a solid 5.14 climber looking for his first 5.13 onsight, is this route not eligible for me to onsight?
16. Suppose I touched the starting holds years ago as a beginning climber running around look at the impressive cliffs (just casually running my hand along the cliff enjoying the novel feeling of stone). Is it now not possible to onsight these routes?
It seems to me that people will vary in their answers to 14-16 and other such scenarios. So, sure, there are things that are pretty clearly not onsights, but to say that the term is black and white and leaves no room for debate seems a bit naive/overblown to me.
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answers will vary to 8-13, i meant
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I feel like you have to actually start climbing for it to count as an attempt… if you blow the first move it’s game over, but if you can’t get your toes off the ground… that’s another thing.
as for the rest, anything that actually helps you send is off limits. I don’t care if it boosts your confidence, the route is still hard.
and I’d also say any major points involving how safe or not the route is are fair game (loose rock, number of bolts, where the line goes). General gear tips are OK (small, medium, large), specific gear tips are grey areas (like quantity and precise size info). I really feel that figuring out the right gear on the lead is part of the Onsight experience, but it’s important to know if you’re getting into a horror-show or a cakewalk.
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We are spending a lot of time talking about the definition but lets not forget the experience of an on-sight. Three weeks ago I went to the iImagination wall at Mt. Charleston for the first time ever. My partner and I were clearly the first people to climb there this season, as there were no footprints in the snow at the base, there was no chalk, and no shoe rubber anywhere to be seen. We didn’t have a guide book and we were the only party at the crag. About all we knew was that the lines were mostly 5.11. It was so fun! we just tied in and climbed, it was a wonderful experience to be finding holds and interpreting moves as we went. Maybe it’s just me but I find on-sighting thrilling even when the climbing is easy.
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I think Douglas makes an excellent point about the thrill of onsighting. Part of the fierce attitude that some climbers have towards these types of definitions and ethical grey areas in climbing is, I believe, in some part tied to the spirit of some of these things. The excitement and adventure of tackling an unknown situation with a less than clear vision of the outcome can be quite exhilarating.
It is quite interesting to see the divide and difference in opinions from climbers around the world. I recently had a discussion with many of my younger climbers regarding this exact topic, and it was interesting to hear the reactions and suppositions of generation that has been growing up in the climbing world. I think it is important to explore and respect the varying opinions of other climbers on subjects of this matter, without feeling afraid to develop and assert an opinion on your own personal ethics.
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What depresses me is the shift in the last 4 years over there at 8a. See this link:
http://www.8a.nu/?IncPage=http%3A//www.8a.nu/forum/ViewForumThread.aspx%3FObjectId%3D12304%26ObjectClass%3DCLS_UserNewsComment%26CountryCode%3DGLOBAL
Back then, they thought just rapping down the route invalidated an onsight. This is why I stick to bouldering, things seem less complicated. I mean if I try a sit-start a few times at say V10, can’t do it, and then come back and do the V6 stand-start first go, thats a “retro-flash” right? Right?
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