“Ooh! What a cute undercling, perfect for my right hand! And look! A matching high foot just below, I’ll put my left there and that will set me up to go big up left.” The rock looks blank up that way, but as I follow through the move, pushing hard with my leg and swinging my body, right arm straight, to pivot in the undercling, my left hand reaches high and settles naturally on a hidden hold. The unknown felt daunting and the relief of fingers half-crimped on a flat ledge washes over my body, drenching me in exhilaration and a will to keep moving.
Brittany Goris thrilled about the finishing jug on Waterspout at Horne Lake in B.C. Photo: Meghan Young
Onsighting involves actively engaging the mind and making conscious decisions about moves based on available input, experience, and a willingness to experiment. Yet, it can also happen in that famed flow-state, where the decisions are made based on an internal process happening so fluidly that the mind is quiet.
I love the calm combined with power, the feeling of exploring moves with my fingertips holding on with as little effort as necessary. Sometimes, a few thoughts drift in and out… “this looks sustained for the next 15 feet, don’t hesitate!” Or, “look at that perfectly angled foothold, someone’s even used it before!”
Onsighting has brought me such joy and fun, but it has been a journey that’s taken some intentional work. I want to share my experience with you in the hope you can glean some useful information and have fun onsighting the next time you go outside.
First, I want to give you my personal perception of what onsighting is, how I pick routes, my mental game, and route reading. After, I propose some questions to help you find your own approach and give 7 climbing tips for successful onsighting.
The Red River Gorge, with its pre-hung draws, chalk, and jugs, is a great place to work on onsighting. Snozzberries at the Chocolate Factory. Photo: Dylan Connole
What is onsighting?
Onsight (verb): to climb from the ground to the anchor cleanly with no prior knowledge about the climb.
My personal definition of ‘prior knowledge’ is strict. How you define it is your own choice.
For me, I can’t onsight a route if:
- I can see the whole route from the ground (hence, no onsighting in bouldering)
- I’ve belayed on the route
- I’ve seen someone climb it
- I’ve seen someone fall
I’ve heard quips about potentially useful beta.
Often, I’ll glance over when a climber is making try-hard noises. If my eyes linger while a climber is fighting hard to stay on the wall, it wouldn’t be an onsight to me. At a busy wall, will it be possible to onsight? Some things are unavoidable, people talk loudly and sometimes I look up and then quickly look away. I am flexible with myself and pay attention to my inner judgement.
Even when it would technically be a ‘flash attempt’, I still climb the route in onsight style. The more practice, the better! By ‘onsight style’, I refer to the practice of experimenting and committing to the unknown rather than taking to scout the moves at a crux or hard to read section.
While bouldering in a dusty gym, a loud-mouth in his early 50’s spouted off a surprisingly insightful sentence, “climber’s always fall up!” He was encouraging anyone within earshot to fall up rather than to let go. To keep trying until you fall is an immensely valuable skill. To always fall up is to overcome fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt. By falling up, we give ourselves the change to surprise ourselves.
Me, overshooting the jug and falling into the hold. I tend to have success onsighting long, pumpy routes like this 42m L’Homme à l’envers in Geyikbayiri, Turkey.
Picking a Route
Climbs that lend themselves to onsights are popular but not mega-classic-over-travelled. Endurance routes are usually easier to onsight than routes with beta-intensive or tricky cruxes.
When possible, I like to onsight my first routes of the day as I warm up. Even on routes two full number grades below my highest onsights, I use all my onsighting strategies and I think this helps me improve my ability to keep trying when I’m closer to my limit.
Set the Stage for Success
To set myself up for success, I try to reduce the pressure on myself to perform or send. As for most people, my magic spot is where I feel no expectations, no pressure to send, but still am filled with an overwhelming desire to climb upwards enough to give it my all.
If my goal is to try to make it as many moves through the route as possible, then the ‘one-shot’ pressure fades away. To onsight to the chains is to make the most moves. If I fall mid-move before clipping them, I still feel victorious. The emotional relief of having exerted energy is my primary goal. What brings me down is when I let go or give up. Falling because a hold broke, or for other out-of-my-control reasons, can get me down briefly. These events beyond our control are just that… beyond our control. How hard I try is my decision. I prefer to fall than strain a muscle too. A quick and logical risk calculation can also make me prefer to fall.
Still, I’m used to letting go. From projecting, I’ve learned to save energy and test new moves more efficiently. When onsighting, then, I try to harness some extra willpower. Sometimes, knowing that I only have once chance to onsight a particular route will help me push forward. Additionally, hearing from someone that a route I’m keen to try is particularly hard to onsight or that “oh, you won’t onsight that” will give me an extra boost of stubborn-fueled strength that has taken me to the chains more than once.
No send here, but stubborn-fueled strength and a creative mind meant I made it to the next bolt.
Route Reading
This is probably the most often mentioned tip for onsighting. It goes something like this:
Get a good view and follow the bolt line as far as you can see with your eyes. Take a mental note of obvious holds, bolts, or gear placement. Chalk? And so on.
I don’t usually look for very long. Mostly, I glance up to see the first few bolts and then go. As a result, sometimes I go off route on accident. My impatience has often resulted in me downclimbing or falling when it likely could have been avoided. Then again, I have a tendency to climb off route…
I continue to read the route as I climb. White thumb print on a hold, black smear. On less traveled climbs, the holds sometimes stand out more clearly as broad areas, while on popular routes the shiny black foot rubber is easy to spot. I break up the route into small sections, focusing on a chunk at a time.
While mostly I look around and up at the rock around me with a mental silence, I am noticing everything I can see. Next hand hold. Ledge. Crack. Ripple. Pocket. All the features I can feast my eyes on. A bolt signals to me that there must be a clipping hold nearby. A pocket might have an undercling or widen on a particular side. Horizontal lines might mean traversing than up again. They can also mean heelhooks or places to push down from above. Even the littlest ones.
This feature is visible from the ground, but it still required a lot of seat-of-the pants beta. Brittany Goris and Drew Marshall onsight The Maw in Cochise Stronghold. Photo: TC Bukowski.
Tips for Successful Onsight Climbing!
Step 1: Pick a route.
Try picking a route in a style you enjoy, for which you have some relevant technical skills, and is about the length of the other routes you are used to climbing.
Step 2: Mental game.
Set yourself up for success. Onsighting is a fabulous way to practice trying as hard as you can, as many ways as you can, until you fall upwards or finish the route. Listen to your body and know yourself as a climber as best you can. Pay attention to your personal mental game. Are you the type of climber who excels from the ‘this is my only chance’ mentality? Or do you prefer “falling instead of taking” equals success approach?
Step 3: Route reading
Read the route before you tie in and during the climb. Take in all the information you can with your eyes and the follow your intuition and apply your climbing knowledge as you go up. Break the route into smaller sections and set intermediate goals while climbing (I just want to make it to that jug, I just want to clip the next bolt).
The mental aspect of onsighting is just that, an aspect. 99% of onsighting happens on the wall. Here are seven specific ways you can climb more efficiently and in a controlled manner, two overarching and crucial skills, while onsighting.
Step 4: Climb!
1. Understand your own abilities:
How much endurance do you have? How well can you recover mid-route while on a medium sized hold? Understanding your body will help you make the best decisions while on the wall. If your endurance is high, but power is low, try climbing steadily at a moderate pace. If you have low endurance and don’t recover well mid-route, make quick decisions and climb steadily. See if you can keep climbing upwards without burning out. No matter who you are – don’t hesitate!
2. Explore holds and then commit:
When the hand sequence is unclear, explore the holds to find the best one or the best part of the hold, but don’t feel around forever. If it’s good enough, grab it and go!
3. Be quick on your feet:
Don’t spend ages looking around for feet. I have two tricks for finding feet on routes that I use all the time. First, I look to where I want a foothold to be, and just place my foot there. These shoes can do anything! The other trick is, because I’m quite small, when I see an often-used foothold, I place my foot slightly higher. Know how to adapt others’ beta to do work best for you.
4. Don’t overgrip:
Climb in a relaxed manner. Hang on with as little effort as possible. Keep your body healthy, shoulders engaged, core slightly flexed. Distribute your weight appropriately, given the holds you have at the time.
5. Rest on the route:
Try to make a logical decision about when, where, and for how long to rest. Consider factors such the length of route, your endurance, the distance to perceived next good hold or anchor. When resting, weight your feet. Bend your knees or use low feet or perch on one foot like a monkey, with the other leg flagged for balance. Adapt your body to match what’s available on the wall.
6. Downclimb when necessary:
Being able to downclimb well means you get more chances! Reading the route wrong can lead me into beta I don’t like. When suddenly my left and is where my right should be, I downclimb into a better position. The ‘should’ here can be hard to decide. Practice downclimbing boulder problems in the gym – this is also a good oppositional strength training exercise.
Messed up beta isn’t the end of the world. I downclimbed and made it through the lower crux on Grave Digger in the Red. Photo: Dylan Connole
7. Go for it!
Commit to the unknown while being in control of your body. Trust that there will be a hold up there. Other people have climbed this (unless it’s an FA!), so there must be a way. Dynamic movement can still happen in control – think of how your core and legs can make a huge difference in sticking a dynamic move or deadpoint.
Remember: it’s always best to fall up!
Falling up before falling down on Where’s the Beef. Photo: Dylan Connole.
