UKH

A minor question of climbing ethics.

Some people seem to claim an onsight when they’ve done a route before, typically on the grounds that they can’t remember anything about the route or even doing the route. I get this and it makes a lot of sense.

However I think you can onsight a route only on your first attempt (unless you downclimb it from part way up and come back later). If you’ve onsighted, seconded, dogged or whatever previously, it’s going to be a repeat ascent, not an onsight.

I’m sure some people will disagree. As with many climbing ethics debates, at the end of the day what really matters is that you’re honest with yourself and with others (if your logbook is open), so as long as people note that they’ve done a route but couldn’t remember it, there isn’t really an issue with claiming an onsight.

Does anyone have any strong views on this?

I've heard it referred to as a 'retro onsight'

Yeah. Perhaps we need a new logbook category. 

It's a "Deja Vu"

A simple definition of an onsight is climbing a line with only prior guidebook information. I have no issue whatsoever with an honest person, who simply can't remember the previous ascent at all, ticking an onsight twice, nor one who has a very bad memory ticking an onsight multiple times.

This is widely known as a "Retro Flash". Even if it was 30 years ago it's still more a flash than onsight. 

I would have thought that a distinction should be made between a retro flash and a retro onsight.

I've coined "Retro-Amnesic-Flonsight". Think it pretty much sums it up.

An Alzheimer's Onsight! Definitely a thing once you enter your third decade of climbing!

That would be unlucky except for late starters. Entering a 3rd decade would be more "did I really climb this before?....my partner must have been way more of a distraction than I realised" territory

Someone got v angry with me on my Facebook page for saying that once. Apparently it’s offensive to people with Alzheimer’s…!

Yes Misha, you're right, like 'couldn't give a toss' perhaps ?

Absolutely not.

Greypoint 

The answer, of course, is that no, you can't onsight a route you've been on before, even if you onsighted it the previous time. It's akin to not being able to lose your virginity twice. 🙂

You can, however, feel like you've onsighted it, which is a wonderful feeling we shouldn't let a minor historical complication get in the way of.

Not that bothered but...

There's a distinction, in my mind at least, between knowing you're done a route but not remembering the details and having completely forgotten you'd ever done the route even after climbing it the second time.

The former is a retro-flash. It is encouraging to know you have climbed a route before, even though it's often a sobering experience the second time around.

I'm not a fan of Alzheimer's and prefer to call the latter a grey point.

I'm guilty, many years ago and well before I had the excuse of advancing years, of having "onsighted" a route, only to be reliably informed in the pub that same evening that I'd failed on it several years earlier!

I've done the opposite. Struggled up a route and only just got it clean, thought it was bloody hard for VS. Went to log it on here and was amazed to see I'd already logged it a few years previously. With the comment "easy warm up".

It sounds like you do have strong views haha

When I was doing the VS challenge, I did do a route where at the very very top I got a strong “I’ve been here before!”. I wasn’t sure what to log it as, it was clearly a repeat ascent, but the original (and definitely onsight) ascent hadn’t been logged for some reason, so it was one of those where I was tempted to put the onsight down just as a log that I’ve onsighted this route, even if that particular day was a repeat. I think I ended up logging it as a repeat but I can’t remember for sure.

"Does anyone have any strong views on this?"

You?

"(unless you downclimb it from part way up and come back later)"

Maybe a better question in my opinion is how is this okay in your books but claiming an onsight more than once isn't okay?

If I’ve climbed a route before but have forgotten all the details, I know with certainty that I can do it.  The same can’t be said for a true onsight.

Edit: I also think the critical details would come back to me in the moment.  Memory is keyed, life is full of things we can’t casually recall but that present themselves when it really matters.

That is generally accepted as okay, it’s not that controversial, provided you got up to your high point and down to the ground without any gear taking a load. 

The hindsight is a wonderful thing..

I can well imagine. I've yet to come across ANY climber with Alzheimers who'd object on this basis because it's a generational form of gallows humour. 

Hypersensitivity and performative offence is a modern day currency. 

Completely agree there's a distinction, I've more than once gone to log a route only to find I'd already previously done it. I think I logged them as repeats though rather than onsights since my log book provided documentary proof they weren't onsights even if my memory disagreed!

But really, surely nobody could really care either way could they?

Maybe, although it also means the casually racist and homophobic aren't quite so openly casually racist and homophobic these days. 

If you have ever watched Alzheimer's take someone's memories, mind then life - it's a really shitty disease. I might have casually used it in a joking way in the past, but having seen two friends lose parents to Alzheimer's I don't anymore. 

And to Misha, totally agree - of course you can't re-onsight anything. I hardly remember anything about hundreds of routes I've climbed, but if I repeat that route it's a repeat. 

I'm not sure we could file racism under gallows humour by definition.

Yes, i have, and am doing. I'm much closer to it than you could know. Gallows humour is a way of dealing with trauma. None of us should judge coping mechanisms, particularly if they are self deprecating. 

Hindsighted Case Dismissed (E3 6a) on Friday, 15 years after failing miserably to second it.  Very pleased with that. 

To echo wintertree's point about memory: as soon as I saw it, I knew that the quartz hold at the end of the traverse was good and had a wire placement behind it.  I had no recollection of any of the moves before leaving the ground. 

Cheers

Al

Yes, that’s it - it might feel like an onsight but technically it can’t be.

That’s a very good point about knowing you can do the route. There’s probably a distinction between recalling that you’d done a route but not any of the details and not recalling the route at all. When people know they’ve done a route before but claim an onsight because they don’t remember the moves etc, they are perhaps taking a rather narrow interpretation of what factors go into an onsight.

I seconded a route recently which I thought I’d never done before but it turns out I’d led it 8 years ago. I was a bit surprised that I couldn’t recall it at all. Logged it as a repeat ascent. Of course an ‘onsight’ seconding is never going to be a proper onsight anyway. 

That’s a separate debate but I think generally it’s accepted as an onsight but clearly not in the best onsight style. 

On a serious point, this is already available - you can just put lead or second, without specifying the style. 

Finger amputation would seem appropriate. 

From the movie "What's New Pussycat":

Liz Bien : You're right. I must face my problems. I can't go through life being a semi-virgin.

Michael James : What, in the name of all that is gracious, is a semi-virgin?

Liz Bien : Here, I'm a virgin. In America, I'm not.

Michael James : What do they do, stamp it on your passport?

If we want to get really philosophical about it, what is "prior knowledge"?

If you'd had a bump to the head and lost that bit of your memory, do you really still have prior knowledge? Or more simply, of the passage of time meant that you had totally forgotten, as in absolute memory fade, would that still constitute prior knowledge? 

I was really surprised this year on Pabbay to visit some crags that I thought I'd never been to (I've had one trip to pabbay in 2007). Even after doing a route (turned out to be one I'd not done before) I still had absolutely no sense of familiarity. Turns out I'd done 3 routes there on the last trip....

If you can't remember you have done it, and don't recognise anything when on it, and only realise when you go to log it, I still think it's fair game. We get all sorts of inadvertent beta on routes ... other climbers, chalk, polish, scratched placements, stuck gear, red felt pen scribbles.... so worrying about inadvertent unrecognised memory would seem odd. It also gives rise to a good story for your climbing partner or if anyone else notices.

I agree.

I would get far more beta from a chalked route, than I would have from a 20 year ago ascent where I have no memory of the moves.

I've onsighted several routes, the most memorable turned out to be Direct Route on Castle Rock. We got to the crag then realised it wasn't in our guidebook. I think there was one or two others like that but the majority were easy solos. Any other onsight was a compromise of some kind. 

Or WTF Point? 

I actually recently heard someone at the boulder wall say "Yeah, I flashed it on the second attempt".

Of course, what he should have said was 'SENT it on the second attempt '

I'm of an age where I routinely forget details about ascents I made years ago - and sometimes much more recent ones! I generally call these repeats Greypoints

Well the key word in "self deprecating" is "self". I for one am not going to try and decide what someone else with Alzheimer's should, or should not, find offensive.

I think there’s an important distinction to be drawn between finding humour in one’s own difficulties as a coping mechanism, and using other people’s difficulties and disabilities as a casual joke.

The context a joke is told in matters as well. Something said in private between friends who know each other’s backgrounds is rather different to something broadcast publicly and without context. That’s not some new-fangled hypersensitivity, it’s just the age old wisdom that when joking about potentially sensitive or upsetting topics “know your audience.”

You seem strangely concerned by what other people choose to record in their personal logbooks

What if you've seen the route in a video a long time ago?

Do you loose the o.s.?

Pope Without A Rope 

I recently ‘onsighted’ an e1 then realised through ukc I had previously onsighted it in 2015. 
it gets worse I then checked an old guide and realised I first onsighted it in 2003. 
I am taking all three onsights! 
I will probably onsight it again on about 5 years. 

What about those new mini routes that we did at  Burbage North the last time we met ? They are not in any guidebook and I didn't lead them.

Pope On A Toprope 

Not me

Can I ask.

Are you going to do your proj this year?

I visited  Malham Cove once with after BMC Fundas 1 at Kendal Wall and the coach showed me some classic routes including Austrian Oak (8b) & Raindogs (8a) .

Good thread

I've just repeated this route after 11 years :

Profiteroles L1 (6a+)

Suits the discussion in character - I remember the character of the route but impossible to remember holds or tricks. Reading the granite is entirely forgettable in respect of micro features.

Thats nonsense. If at 50 you repeat a route you did at 20 you hardly have the same physical capacity. equally after 5yrs with injury recovery cycles etc

Quite possibly for routes of a certain character

They might have been entirely forgettable without you and others who took part that day

Jesus wept. Can't be long before you and PM find offence in the term 'onsight' as it excludes the RNIB demographic...

For someone complaining about hypersensitivity, it hasn’t taken much for you to get to the point of trying to insult people. Suggests you might be taking this a bit too personally.

As I say, no problem with gallows humour, do it myself regularly. And I wouldn’t say I’m offended by jezb’s joke, but I don’t think it takes a huge degree of empathy to understand why broadcasting casual jokes about disabilities to the internet at large could touch the odd nerve.

I've also heard the term Madonna Onsight... or Dementia Onsight, plus a few other mentioned.

And again, by clear definitions (well current definition of Onsight, anyway), you can only do it once.

But as others have pointed out, it can certainly feel like an OS... When you've truly forgotten that you have climbed that line previously....

This statement does very little in the way of explain why it's generally considered okay. I'm aware that it's considered okay and to expanding on the ideas from later in the post, if onsighting is considered the best and most pure of styles, climbing up, down, up, down etc shouldn't possibly be categorised in the same way.

It's clearly very impressive (technically) to read every move well and to climb an entire route without reconsidering even a single move; I agree. However it's also impressive (physically and tactically) to recover from misreading a move, or even from spending time exploring options, by reversing to a rest, a ledge or the ground, from which you may be better able to continue your attempt.

That an onsight ascent may somehow be lessened or even invalidated if one or more moves are reversed and rethought, is a bit like saying a boxer can't win a bout if they don't win each round outright. As long as you haven't weighted the rope you're still in the game and there's still just as much to play for as if by chance you were to hit every sequence perfectly.

I’m more concerned about the ‘fight like two ferrets in a sack, somehow get up by the skin of the teeth,  only to get home and realise you did it years ago so easily you’d forgotten you’d done it’ point.

Yes, that’s an easy reaction to jump to - and we hear it all the time these days “political correctness gone mad” etc. What tends to get forgotten is that being “edgy” with the words we use is a choice, not something we’re forced into; language is rich with alternatives, and there are always less potentially offensive words available to express our meaning, if we care to consider using them. My personal opinion is that anyone referring to an “Alzheimer’s onsight” or similar on an online forum is being clumsy and insensitive with their use of words. But it might be ok in private with a group of friends. As someone already said - always try to keep in mind your audience. 

I’m getting those in increasing numbers, sadly. 

Strawman. 

So to be clear, given the number of visually impaired climbers do you approve of exclusive language like "onsight"? 

You appear to be confused between “jokes” and “words”. We were talking about jokes. 

https://www.dictionary.com/

I propose: Hindsight

I'm looking forward to a slew of them if my kids get into climbing and I get my second wind. I keep hearing route names, clicking yhe description and finding I've done them, in another 10 years they'll all be a total blank!

In summary: who cares, have fun

Jk

“I'm on a whisky diet. I've lost three days already.” ― Tommy Cooper

Maybe people can try the same with climbing? If they are sufficiently drunk from an exceptionally heavy session they could onsite a route more than once in the same day/evening/few days? 

I hope the logbooks can be adjusted to allow this?

Some people post potentially offensive forms of words or phrases, and then when they get the inevitable complaints, complain themselves, deeming any negative reaction "oversensitive". My point is to remind such people that no-one forced them to use those words, and they could equally easily have used less potentially offensive words - so to some extent they are pursuing their own agenda, by being deliberately "edgy", presumably, either deliberately to provoke those negative reactions, or out of carelessness/misjudgement. Seems straightforward to me.

Some people look to be offended and see offence where non was taken. They also tend to chuck the word "edgy" around (it's memed heavily).

It seems pretty simple to me that the term i used above is self deprecating, leverages a condition to illustrate a particular point about memory & age, and is not meant to offend. This seems straightforward to me.

Given your concern about "potentially offensive" language, would "onsight" qualify given it excludes visually impaired climbers?

John thank you for your well written and described response. I wasn’t suggesting that anything be invalidated, I’m trying to explore the nuances of what people consider good and bad.

Say I try a route, climb up to the crux and reverse down to the floor. I’ll then go have some lunch, maybe get a better view of the route, see a hold I missed and then go do it. Do you consider this exactly the same as climbing from the ground to where ever the top is without returning to where you started?

When was the floor considered fair game in climbing? We have all these arbitrary rules but if my foot brushes the floor, a pad, a spotter’s arm then it’s no bueno but as long as I can reverse I can return to the biggest foot hole going, the ground?

Can I jump off of routes and still claim the onsight? Can I traverse into another route, I didn’t weight the rope!? Or do I have to down climb the exact way I came up? 

You are obviously much younger then me. Sadly for me that is not true at all!

That’s a fair point but I just think technically you can only onsight a route if you’ve not been on it previously (unless you down climbed after getting part of the way up). On a wider point, if I can’t remember doing a route, it probably wasn’t particularly good and / or hard, so I wouldn’t see the value in claiming a retro onsight anyway.

Which brings me to a wider point - to what extent do people claim retro onsights because it was genuinely an onsight experience for them, as opposed to logbook vanity? I’d like to think it’s the former but I suspect some people are susceptible to the latter…

Good term!

Climbing up and down the same route without weighting the rope preserves the onsight. That’s also true if you come back on a different day, though in that case you would generally take the gear out and certainly pull the ropes (and if you an the route to get the gear, it won’t be a proper onsight anyway - of course you could ask your partner to do that, or take the gear out as you down climb). Of course it’s not a perfect onsight and if I do this, I mention it in the logbook. 

Re brushing the floor, that’s bouldering ethics. For trad, I would say jumping off blows the onsight, whereas a controlled downclimb does not. 

Well I've climbed routes that were very good and hard enough for me that came close. To me it's more about honesty (a vital point in any claim) and if it's effectively onsight (ie with no memory of having climbed it before or of any aspect of the route) that's the most honest claim. In contrast,  I'd regard quite a few of my first leads, often regarded as 'onsights' by others, 'under the rules', as varying degrees of beta flashes because chalk or other factors made the moves more obvious than usual.

I'm also more than happy with John's 'tactical reversal to a rest and reassess' onsight; or even a fall, lower to the ground, pulled ropes, and subsequent success as a ground up onsight.

I prefer to trust climbers to be honest until they prove untrustworthy.

Are you seriously drawing a parallel between referring to an ascent as "onsight" and as "Alzheimers"? Get real!

I didn’t mean that people are dishonest (after all, I’d only know that they’ve done it before if they say so in their log), just wondering whether the decision to log an onsight is at least in part due to logbook vanity…

Falling off then starting from the ground (generally after pulling the ropes) is recognised as ground up. I wouldn’t call it a ground up onsight though, just to avoid potential confusion. Perhaps a moot point about pulling the ropes. If you’re on the ground, you should do, otherwise it’s a yo yo. If on a multi pitch route, it might not be very practical. Had exactly this today - it was a hanging stance below a ledge (impossible to belay on the ledge as the gear was too low), however the starting point for the next pitch was off the ledge above the belay and you could clip the first couple of pieces off the ledge (they were slightly below and to the side of the ledge as that’s where the route wen). It took me about 6 goes to do the crux, which was at the start of the pitch. I got back onto the starting ledge each time but didn’t bother unclipping and reclipping as it would have been pretty artificial, not least because I started off being above the gear. I’m taking ground up - will write it up in the log later. Admittedly a rather rare situation.

Rather than debating what is or isn’t potentially offensive, personally I’d stick to the principle of avoiding using language which someone might reasonably find offensive, if there is another way of getting the point across (which there usually is). In this case, retroflash is the correct term, as pointed out above. I also like the suggestion of hindsight. I’m not sure greypoint is entirely appropriate as that sounds ageist. Though I have some grey hair now, so perhaps I can use it 😉

Not exactly the same no, but both would be perfectly good onsight ascents.

The ground always was fair game, at least until competition climbing in the late 80s outlawed it purely to speed up the events! I know many people nowadays find that hard to believe but it's far less contrived that way.

There's a major difference between routes and bouldering, which makes sense when you consider there's no rope to weight if you fall off a problem. Routes with problem starts are therefore a grey area; in some cases you might consider yourself to have onsighted the route once you'd worked the boulder start. A good example might be Green Death (E5 5c).

And as for traversing off route, that's always been a nono, for whatever reason you might be doing it 

The penny drops for a man arguing from a position of "potentially offensive".

If I repeat a route when I'd no recollection of having done it before I'll log it as "onsight", since to all intents and purposes it was.  If I've no knowledge of where to find the holds or which gear to use, or even the assurance that comes from having climbed it before, to me that's the same as doing it for the first time.  I'm an unashamed punter and my logbook is for my own purposes, and is of little concern to anyone else. I don't see it as a question of ethics, since I'm not "claiming" anything, it's simply a record for my own satisfaction.

Similarly, I don't regard taking a single fall as equivalent to dogging a route, so I'll log it as climbed but with a comment.  If I actually dog it then I'll record as such.  Neither do I get exercised about beta or "blowing the onsight" - my main concern is to get up it without too much incident. If others care about these matters that's fine, but they don't bother me.

These distinctions only really matter for notable ascents for which the term "claim" is valid, or perhaps amongst groups of friends who get competitive over these things.  For the rest they're open to interpretation.

Yeah you can claim it. You can second one climber (a), and then go and onsight it with another climber (b), as long as a and b don't know each other. Bit more complicated with people putting stuff on SM nowadays, but you get my drift.

I guess it depends on how you're defining on-sight. Generally, it's considered doing a route without any prior knowledge other than what's in the guide, which by definition means on your first encounter with the route and therefore the first attempt. (Personally, I'm a bit unsure about the whole down-climbing to the ground ethic for on-sighting. I can understand reversing a move or even downclimbing to a ledge, or jug to rest, but I feel like if you find yourself back on the ground your attempt ended in failure).

But on the subject of prior knowledge, I guess you could argue that knowledge can be lost i.e. you've completely forgotten you ever climbed it, let alone details of the moves etc. Therefore, a future accent many years later could be regarded as on-site or at least indistinguishable from an on-site from your perspective even if you have ultimately been up it before.

But I do feel an on-site should be more accurately defined as "on your first attempt at leaving the ground and with no prior knowledge".

I think you're probably getting bogged down in people bulk adding to their logbook setting all routes to one setting, "Lead Onsight" or similar as it's easily done. I've definitely done this before and will update when I notice them, but not everyone cares as much about the details.

Also if these people aren't caveating their logs with "taking the onsight despite..." how do you know they're not onsighting them? If they are does that not fall under "honest logging"

do agree you can only onsight something once though and downclimbing is dubious too and should always be commented on "top half onsight after downclimbing previously in the rain" etc. even then it's pushing it to log it as onsight and surely counts as "logbook vanity" as you say...

I think Hindsight is trying to lead a route you seem to remember pissing up at some point in the past... and finding you can't get near it!

Not always- my only retro flash of any note was of a route I’d previously failed on and had a dim memory of which way to go on the crux, realised I was mistaken so went the other way, didn’t like that either and tried both methods repeatedly until in desperation threw one on and struggled to the top.

Memory did not serve me well that time. It would have been easier to genuinely onsight tbh

That is certainly the purest form of onsight but I’d say not the only one. 

Yeah I’d only know if the mention it in the log. 

They won’t be offended for long.

Does it really matter. Who cares, and obsessively examines other climbers lists?

Probably not all of them, but there's clearly a risk of upsetting some sufferers, or members of their families. As a matter of interest, did you stop using the phrase after the negative feedback?

Of course. I shared this anecdote to raise the possibility it might be upsetting for some, not something I had considered for this phrase before because obviously there was no offence intended.

What on earth are you on about?

I remember doing the top pitch of zulú demente Sort of onsight in the 1990s after having done It as a aid route a few years before.

I wonder if falling off after clipping the belay counts😂

I seconded a route at Swanage, a three star E1,  that I'd really wanted to lead. I 'generously' let my partner do it because it was his first E1. I congratulated him on his success (while guiltily wishing I'd led it as nothing else I did that weekend came close)...

...when logging it on UKC I found I'd led it 10yrs earlier.

Always obey the sacred logbook. If you've done it before, it's not an on-sight even if it feels like one. However, you always have the option to note that you did not remember it so it felt like an on-sight. After all, notes are about your personal feelings on the route whereas the style of ascent is set in stone. 

And as for knowing you can do a route if you've done it before, I have definitely fallen off loads of times repeating routes I've on-sighted.

This opens up the philosophical question: If you don't log it does the ascent exist? 

It's often been quite random, the way I record routes, (when I could be bothered it would be in the guide that gets replaced) so if I forget I've done a route it really is onsight to me.

If you don't keep your logbook up to date then why are you even climbing? For the pure enjoyment of the movement?! HAH! 

Logbook is life.

Well, it happened. Whether an action that took place in the past 'exists' seems an odd way of putting it. It's like saying does the eating of yesterday's tea exist?

It may have happened but if there's no record and you have no memory  whatsoever of it happening it can't affect your perception of it being an 'onsight'.

What's needed is a new symbol in the logbooks. I'm suggesting a goldfish. Obviously it wouldn't be available to users under the age of 45. 😉

What if I've belayed a friend on a route and later I do the route in one go, is it a flash because I've seen the moves? Do I loose the o.s. because I have beta?

YVBIL

If the info gained by watching your friend on the route was, you feel, helpful to you on your later ascent, then yes.

I returned, after 30 years to a small  crag where I'd logged, "Soloed half of the routes on this crag." I couldn't get off the ground and when I managed the mods insisted they were at least a grade harder. Ah well, back to falling off my mountain bike.

Let's get an onsight done before we discuss details eh?

WHTEDOG

Many years ago I went with Robin Barker to try The Dark Destroyer (7c+). We both spent some time reading the moves from the ground, competition style, and disagreed only on how to do one move, IIRC by about the third bolt. He won the toss for who got to try first, tried it his way and fell, lowering to the ground straight away. I then tried it the way I'd read it from the ground and got to the top.

Onsight or flash?

Would you have changed your sequence if his had worked?

Have you ever changed sequence on an onsight attempt on the spur of the moment?

I'd have thought that there is a real possibility that had you gone first you may have changed sequences upon feeling the holds. I know I have in the past.

Knowing that the other sequence did not work for your friend will have influenced you.

Possibly, but then again I'm pretty sure his way was much harder so I may well have fallen off trying it.

Yes of course, but I'm not sure that's relevant here. When you read a sequence from the ground you tend to follow it until such time as you think better of doing so and, at least up until after the point at which he'd fallen, that wasn't the case.

Well Robin didn't do so! In reality, it seemed from the ground that we'd have to be decisive to have any chance of success, so hanging around rethinking a sequence was never likely to be an option. It was more a case of executing the moves as though on redpoint.

It certainly influenced me; it made me more certain that the way I was already intent on trying it was better! Maybe there's a minuscule benefit from increased confidence in my sequence, I don't know, but if so it must be extremely marginal.

ps. Robin did it straight after me, using my sequence, and made it look easy!

In the situation you describe the benefits were probably marginal indeed. But I can picture scenarios where it could be decisive with more ambiguous sequences. Maybe it should be like potting the black in pool with a nominated pocket. You only get the onsight after watching if you nominate a sequence first and stick to it. Possibly a video of the "comp style" hand movements is required to be recorded first.

I think the question of "does bad beta invalidate the onsight?" is trickier than "does seeing someone do it wrong invalidate the onsight?".

Can someone blow your insight by giving you wrong or misleading information? 

There are no definitive answers. Just to point out that I've never considered myself to have onsighted that route, but in my mind I consider my ascent to be equivalent.

I thought as much and when you belay you have to your eyes oh the climber at all times.

YVBIL

I am keen to climb in rock this summer - I might go to Llandudno and check out Parisellas Cave this week. 😀🙂

Do you know who I am talking about and what YVBIL stands for? 

What does your Abbrevs stand for?

YVBIL 

It's a famous joke, so it shouldn't take you long to figure out.

Still trying to work it out. 😀

Have you guessed who the climber is?

YVBIL 

In reply to Trippin Mark:

Think it was more to do with folk registering their response to the tedious subject matter...

Interesting scenario. As you say, there's probably not a definitive answer. My thinking is that as with most onsight/flash debates, if it felt like an onsight, it's an onsight, if it felt like a flash, it's a flash. And only you can answer that!

I select whether I have lead or seconded a climb then always select 'onsight' as it's the first option that comes up in the drop down box and if I've lead it I have onsighted it, if its a repeat who cares as I onsighted it at some point. It sounds like you take the log book way too seriously, it's just a record of climbs done and crags visited surely?

Depends how accurate you want to be. Some folk who don't want to get too bogged down in style will just select Lead or 2nd.

I'm not sure you get to decide if someone is looking to be offended, or is actually offended. If someone tells you what you're saying is offensive, you're being offensive. Regardless of whether or not you are offended by it. 

I'm offended by this. 😉

And to quote Christopher Hitchens, "Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt."

And to quote Stephen Fry, "It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fućking what?"

OK, you carry on then. 

Pretty much, those getting bogged down in it need to get out and onsight more.

Apart from if it was a new cutting edge onsight (retro) ascent of an E10 right. Ofc its not an onsight, I have no issue with people making up their own rules as long as they don't expect others to accept it in the normally accepted way. Some people think they've ticked the route after resting on gear, fine that's up to them but don't expect everyone else to think its the same thing as a clean lead.

Are you the person that is somehow linked to The E.M.?

Does she want to train with me?

I need to start onsiting. 

YVBIL 

"I need to start onsiting." I do that every time I get on the sofa

Amongst those determined to be offended, I will thanks.

Lol. I saw my typo. 😆

Had a great afternoon on Hutton Roof Crags. What a fantastic place.

Had a great afternoon,  to make up for last week, on Hutton Roof Crags. What a fantastic place.

Let us know when you spot your mistake!

I see the Sierra Club are currently banning the term “paralyzed by fear” because it’s ableist!

Clowns to the left of me.....

Perhaps take your own advice and stop searching for things to get wound up about. 

Fortunately for both Fry and Hitchens, a sufficient number of people were offended by general attitudes to homosexuality that their sexual orientations were no longer criminalised and being spat at (amongst other things) in the street is no longer considered socially acceptable.

No need to search for it when spinelessness is addressed to me on a UKC thread.

That's actually quite insulting to slugs.