10 year moratorium.

As some eagle-eyed viewers may spot, I am quite keen on normal traditional climbing i.e. looking at the book, looking at a route from the bottom and maybe side or top, pulling on to it and trying really hard to get to the top first time - let's call this "onsight" climbing, without prior knowledge nor experience of the route. I'm less a fan of the spurious ego-wanking attainment-entitlement toss-wittery of picking something you want to achieve or tick but you're not actual capable of, not trying to improve to be capable of it, and avoiding the whole issue by inspecting or practising it - let's call this "pre-failure", without even giving it a normal attempt to fail on gracefully. I even sometimes vocally promote the former over the latter (subject to the usual disclaimer about it being less applicable to cutting edge "beyond current onsighting levels" routes and especially new routes, because despite the gargantuan levels of idiocy required to mis-extrapolate that, some people really are that stupid - you know who you are).

So far, so unsurprising. Also unsurprising is that I promote the former in a "spirit of the law, not letter of the law" sort of way. It's all about the experience - the best, most rewarding, most honest, most true-to-self, experience. There's lots of potential nitty gritty about the ethics - or style, if anyone gives a flying belay-ledge-shit about that linguistic distinction - that roughly codify that experience. Lots of potential UKC "Peak vs Peaks"-style cure-for-insomnia pedant-debates about "if a mate throws up a cam you've forgotten, is it onsight?", "if you downclimb to a rest ledge and take your shoes off to rest your feet is it onsight?", "if you ab down, wirebrush the fuck out of it and preplace the gear, but you'd shot a testtube of crack into your ringpiece* before doing so, is it still onsight?" etc etc (* - nb a prerequisite for taking part in such debates).

In fact it's a grey area, with the shades of grey being fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain who gets that experience. But still they are many and varied and shades and sometimes one gets strange results...

Take a climber. He has just climbed a cool bold route. He abseils down to strip the spaced gear as his partner doesn't fancy seconding it (the same partner that despite being a much better climber neglected to mention that he had previously been rescued of a rest ledge on his attempt ahem). On the way down he casually glances across at an adjacent much harder route, spying the crucial mid-crux RP placement and noting that it seems good, as does a sporadic hold. He doesn't test the size, pull on the holds, nor attempt any sequences - a literal quick look. Yet so much crucial information is revealed that would make a massive difference to the confidence in climbing it. Enough of a different experience so of course he walks away, does a couple of boulder problems, and drives home.

(That was me, doing Pillar Of Judgement, and looking at Judge Dredd at The Nth Cloud)

Take a climber. He's at a crag choosing a route. He looks at his friend's guidebook and picks a mild testpiece. He sets off from the bottom, pulls on some holds, places some gear, works out some moves, cranks through a pushy bulge, reaches the top. All good honest fun. Except when he comes to "tick" the route in his own, battered and abused, guidebook, he notices the shock of "X - PF" . He's previously failed on the route, presumably pumping out and not committing on the crux bulge, presumably slumping and lowering off the gear. He has been there, on those holds, placing that gear, pulling those moves. But not only can he not remember enough to constitute any prior knowledge, he couldn't even remember having tried and failed at all. He calmly rubs out the cross and replaces it with a tick.

(That was me, doing The Prophet at Cummingston)

What does it - all this 3rd person verbosity - all mean?? It means that the concept of the retro-flash, the amnesia-point, letting the onsight grow back, is very real. And if you're honest with yourself, and have genuinely forgotten any prior knowledge that could change the journey, the experience is very real. Honesty is the key, as is forgetfulness - I seem to do okay at both.

This relates to my current situation insofar as I'm back down somewhere where I've previously climbed a lot, and thus as a cowardly punter naturally previously failed a lot. Dividing my existence into pre-Scottish-exile and post-escape-from-the-frozen-North, there is an elegant decade gap between climbing and failing back then and climbing and failing now. Thus my 10 year moratorium - if I failed on it in my previous incarnation, I almost certainly can't remember anything useful, so it is fair game in the spirit of the ethical law.

Bring on the retro-flashes!