Lead/Onsight

News flash!!!

Onsight = onsight. 

Toprope ≠ Onsight... Aided ≠  Onsight... Bailed ≠ Onsight...Onsight all but one pitch ≠ Onsight... Fell, Aided, THEN Bailed ≠ Onsight.

Climbed a multipitch with a partner, swapping or blocking leads, didn't lead every pitch and didn't fall or aid and did the whole thing... Not sure about this but I call it an onsight. RP when in doubt. 

Can you onsight an aid route?

Can you bake a smoothie?

I looked at the ticks for the Pickle which is a straight up piton ladder and had to laugh at how many were lead/onsight or lead/flash. Probably 50% 

What’s the difference between a news flash and a news onsite? This is, at best, a news follow, possibly a news A0

Where's Walden wrote:

Onsight all but one pitch ≠ Onsight

Tsk tsk

Honest question: why do we care though?

Where's Walden wrote:

Time Wave Zero...  EPC...maybe not cutting edge for climbing purists or ethics

I think climbing terms have specific meanings, and we should strive to use them correctly. But… Things get blurry on the multipitch routes, where MP tick options lack enough granularity.

What if you HAD onsighted 10 pitches on a multi pitch route, and then had to bail because of the storm?

What if the top 3 pitches are chossy, and many people choose to rap from the last good pitch, instead of finishing up the boring choss?

You don’t want to claim that you onsighted the whole route, but you do want to note that you onsighted every pitch you did lead, especially if these 10 pitches include the crux pitches, and the remaining 2 are just an easy scramble to the standard walk-off, and most people choose not to do them…

You could create a separate entry for a partial route that ends at pitch 10, and then claim the onsight of THAT route, but it’s kinda silly.

That’s where notes come into play, and, in my book, anyone who honestly describes what they did is doing just fine within the limited tick options that they have.

I personally would choose just “lead”, and then not click any of the onsight/flash/redpoint bullets, and use the note option to record what I did. But some people may not know that they have the option of not choosing the sub-categories under “lead”, and so click on the first option…

Lena chita wrote:

I think climbing terms have specific meanings, and we should strive to use them correctly. But… Things get blurry on the multipitch routes, where MP tick options lack enough granularity.

What if you HAD onsighted 10 pitches on a multi pitch route, and then had to bail because of the storm?

What if the top 3 pitches are chossy, and many people choose to rap from the last good pitch, instead of finishing up the boring choss?

You don’t want to claim that you onsighted the whole route, but you do want to note that you onsighted every pitch you did lead, especially if these 10 pitches include the crux pitches, and the remaining 2 are just an easy scramble to the standard walk-off, and most people choose not to do them…

You could create a separate entry for a partial route that ends at pitch 10, and then claim the onsight of THAT route, but it’s kinda silly.

That’s where notes come into play, and, in my book, anyone who honestly describes what they did is doing just fine within the limited tick options that they have.

I personally would choose just “lead”, and then not click any of the onsight/flash/redpoint bullets, and use the note option to record what I did. But some people may not know that they have the option of not choosing the sub-categories under “lead”, and so click on the first option…

I believe you can adjust the pitches climbed. So say pitches 7 instead of 10, add in the note “onsight to common rappel point of the route after P7”

The only thing more lame than caring about what other people are harmlessly doing with their time, is screenshotting names and calling them out publicly for what they are harmlessly doing with their time. 

There's so much more you can do with yourself...try harder. We believe in you.

unless you are climbing at the most elite level this stuff doesn’t matter in the slightest. do whatever makes you happy, please don’t tell me about it, especially at the crag.

NateC wrote:

The only thing more lame than caring about what other people are harmlessly doing with their time, is screenshotting names and calling them out publicly for what they are harmlessly doing with their time. 

There's so much more you can do with yourself...try harder. We believe in you.

But what about my ego? I need to feel morally superior about my climbing abilities to make up for my personality deficiencies but also can't climb hard enough to truly do cutting edge stuff. 

What the heck am I supposed to do???? Why are you oppressing me??

I mean, we can get into technicalities...

Onsight... is "on sight". You walked up to a rocky area, saw something, and climbed it, with no prior beta. No grade, no topo, no beta on gear or cruxes... You have no idea on if its a prior established route or not unless you happen to see bolts or other evidence of human passage.

Onsight is rare these days.

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

I mean, we can get into technicalities...

Onsight... is "on sight". You walked up to a rocky area, saw something, and climbed it, with no prior beta. No grade, no topo, no beta on gear or cruxes... You have no idea on if its a prior established route or not unless you happen to see bolts or other evidence of human passage.

Onsight is rare these days.

 By that definition the term is mostly useless. 

Well, climbing is mostly useless too. To me, the onsight vs flash or redpoint is more like the age old argument between returning to the ground after any fall or hang vs. hang dogging.

Everyone uses onsight for what should be, by definition a flash... and a great deal of people don't change settings or completely misapply settings all the time. Like selecting lead for routes that are definitely top rope only.

Its like people calling things "splitter" that definitely are not. Or people saying knee pads, when they mean knee-bar pads. Or knot when they are talking about something that is a hitch.

Yeah, people don't call things by their proper names all the time.

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

Yeah, people don't call things by their proper names all the time.

I’m not disputing that. I’m arguing that your definition of onsight is so narrow that it renders the term almost completely obsolete. By your definition, I’ve only onsighted maybe 10 routes in a 15 year climbing career. I almost always know the name, grade, and the suggested rack before I head up a “rocky area.”

Here’s how I differentiate the two: 

Onsight: The first time I got on the route, I led the entire route without falls or hangs and without any prior knowledge of how do the moves.

Flash: Same, but I had knowledge of how to do the moves.

Knowing the grade, gear beta (even something as specific as, “save a #3 for the top”) don’t figure into my distinction at all, and thankfully, my sends are so utterly insignificant that no one has ever called me out on it. 

Like going single to a wedding on-sighting should make you feel optimistic yet fearful and lonely.

The only true onsight is walking randomly in the woods blindfolded until you hit a cliff and then climbing it.

Chalk must be pre-washed from the route, lest it contribute to your send.

Hopefully you brought a long enough rope I guess.

I suggest wearing earplugs at all times to avoid inadvertently being hit by spray.

If I am going for the onsight, but someone ticked the crux hold, is it now a flash? I remember a climb where this happened looks like I ticked the onsight, should I change it?!

Honest question: why do we care though?

We don't. 

It is funny seeing people memorialize lies to themselves though.