Climbing what does flash mean

If you flash a climb it means you climbed it on your first attempt with some information about it before you tried. The difference here is that a flash allows you to know beta or information about the route before your try. An onsight is very strict about not getting any beta.

Essentially a flash in climbing means using any knowledge about the route. That can include as little as a description in a guidebook or as much as on-the-wall coaching move by move. Commonly a group at a crag might share info on the moves for a tricky crux sequence. Other things that can help include watching a video of the route, rappelling down, brushing and ticking holds, watching someone else climb it before you, or reading UKC logbooks …yes I am specifically calling you out.

At the professional level it gets a bit stricter. Generally, especially in regards to on-sighting and flashing routes, this terminology implies that you cleanly lead the routes — taking zero falls or hangs in the process.

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You only have one try for an onsight. Sounds difficult? It is. That is why Onsight is also considered the most valuable way to visit a route. The heaviest onsights so far have been climbed by Alex Megos and Adam Ondras in grade 9a.

Of course, you can also just get into a route and hope to make the right decision by chance. This is the usual onsight approach, but you will not be able to achieve the same level of onsight as you would with proper preparation.

In case of failure, the difficulties are then tinkered from hook to hook and then get the pass just called redpoint or passage. With a flash, you climb a route the same way you did on the first try, but with all the information you can get. You can watch other climbers in the route, question them about every detail, comb through Internet forums, and so on. You can really describe each handle and step exactly. Of course, the only thing you can not do before a flash attempt is to get on the route and touch the handles yourself.

The flash of a route is given less value than an onsight, but the route has still been climbed in the first attempt. Therefore, a flash continues to be considered more valuable than a normal practiced via. If the onsight or flash of a route did not work out, you have to work out and rehearse it until you can go through it without falling.

The level of difficulty that you can achieve in Onsight and Flash is below the true maximum of their abilities for most climbers. This can be achieved by examining each movement, exercise, and planning the route. If you know enough and you think you could climb the route, you start climbing red dot attempts. Often you end up in the rope a couple of times until you finally manage to do it and send a tricky section of the climb.

This process is called projecting, and it is a mixture of nervous game, strategy, and fitness test. Before the widespread adoption of the red dot definition, the views differed as to when a route was considered to have been made, depending on location and time.

In the English-speaking world, the Yoyo style was the accepted doctrine before the red dot. It meant to climb freely but lay safety or clip existing hooks until you fell. Then you were immediately lowered to the ground.