Yes and Yes

I think what we have here is a failure to communicate!

What I mean when I say "I didn't get route X clean" is exactly what you're saying: I fell or hung - relying on a point of aid - before continuing up the climb. How is that in any way ambiguous, disingenuous, or otherwise morally compromised?

And when I do say that, it's usually immediately followed by a statement of intent, such as "I think I know what I did wrong, and I think I'll get it next time." In other words - an acknowledgment that I failed to get both the onsight and the free ascent, but came close, and learned some beta by attempting it, and would now like to try for the redpoint.

GO

That, indeed, isn't. But we've all heard ludicrous statements like "I was able to get the on-sight on my 3rd go, but I didn't get it clean."

As we were packing up one day last week in Red Rocks, we watched a guy hang on each bolt after the 2nd on a 9+, commenting on how nice and cool the moves were while his partner congratulated him on how well he did.

I think I just read something similar in Yankee Rock + Ice - 'he led it on sight with just one fall'.

Bizarre. In 11 years of climbing, I've never heard anything like either of these claims. Onsight simply means you led it cleanly on your first go, no beta. I thought that was pretty clear?

At least in Julie's quote it's obvious what's meant: he fell only once on his onsight attempt.

But RG's point seems to be a different one: that falling and continuing on on the onsight attempt is... is... I'm not entirely sure what he thinks it is.

I mean, from a purely traditional free-climbing mindset, it's pretty bad form since it's using sport/aid tactics to get up a route, as opposed to lowering, pulling the rope, and trying again. But there seems to be some objection to using the terminology of "not having gotten the route clean" which I don't understand.

Maybe the confusion is around the term "clean"? In free climbing, I understand the term to be used to mean the opposite of "hangdog". To climb a pitch clean means that while it's not clear whether it's a pink-point, redpoint, onsight, beta flash, or what have you - it is understood that you climbed from bottom to top without falling.

This is different from in aid climbing, in which I understand the term to mean clean versus hammered.

GO

In what I quoted - the slippery usage lends me to wonder whether there were also multiple hangs on gear that just weren't noted.

If the definitions of 'onsight' and even 'lead' become so ... generous .... that we still have to specify whether they were also clean or involved falls &/- hanging, then what's the point of such terms?

I'm very traditionalist in this: if you hang on gear at any point, you've aided the climb and did not do it free. If this happens during an on-sight attempt, you've forever lost the possibility of doing the route on-sight. You only get one chance at an on-sight. Let's be clear - we're talking about weighting the gear, not downclimbing to a rest stance.

Phraseology such as "I climbed it but not cleanly" is simply an ego-saving way of saying (and obscuring) "I used aid to get up the climb."

Look up Jim Erickson and his strict concept of "tainting" a climb for historical reference.

Right. That's clear as day to everyone I know and climb with. And it has nothing to do with "trad". If you hang or fall on an onsight attempt of a sport climb, you blew the onsight. Period.



Bullshit. There's nothing "ego-saving" about it. Ego-saving would be lying and claiming you accomplished something you didn't. Saying of an onsight attempt "I topped out, but didn't get it clean" is simply a clear and concise way of saying "I attempted to lead the climb cleanly onsight, but, failing that, continued up the route anyway."

GO

Which is being true to the origins of our sport i.e. to climb to the top of something. "The leader must not fall" philosophy notwithstanding, falls do happen from time to time. I see nothing wrong with taking one's lumps and bumps, then resuming the effort. As long as they are honest about it of course, in whatever tortured language they use. To suggest that the proper thing to do in the event of a fall is to pull the rope and start over, is simply elitist and contrived. One might climb this way (and many early Gunkies insisted on it) but c'mon, this is REALLY creating an artificial set of rules. I thought it was about getting to the top?

M. - who enjoys working the TR redpoint -

Agreed. By "traditionalist view" that's exactly what I meant, not this thing called "trad climbing" that we had to invent after someone* came up with the term "Sport climbing".


That's fine for those of us who get it. Unfortunately it seems many don't and that somehow you can have multiple on-sight attempts and you achieve the on-sight once you do it "cleanly".

*: was that someone Alan Watts at Smith? I don't remember.