Sessions, tries and time ethics

Onsight and Flash are the most impressive ascents as they explain a climb was done in the first try. A 2nd Go ascent means that for routes you did it after having worked it to the top once. In other words, you possibly spend 5 - 20 minutes trying different beta to find the best solutions. In regards to boulders, there is no clear definition of what second go means and it is not so often used beside when somebody actually does it on their second attempt directly after having failed to flash it. Quick boulder ascents are more often reported to have been done within 10 minutes or so.

Ascents can also be reported to have been done during a certain number of sessions, i.e. projecting a climb for one or several hours. It should be mentioned that whenever talking about how long time it took to do a climb, also the time spent on the shared part should be included. If you first do the stand start of a 7A boulder, you can never claim to have flashed the sit start of it. If you first did a 7c after several sessions and then later did another 7c exit of it during your first session, in reality also the second 7c took several sessions to do. The same thinking relates to that you should not claim an onsight or flash if you have benefitted from climbing part of the climbs before.

In the 8a Ethics and Practice, we have, however, said that you can claim an onsight or flash, "When the shared part of the climb is more than a full grade lower, i.e. a 6c start is divided into two 7c+'s." There are furthermore examples when climbers and the media have reported about semi-onsight when let us say, somebody onsighted an 8c which shared a 7c+ sequence in the start.

Remember there are no fixed set of rules or referees in climbing like in all other sports. It is the climbing community that has created the "rules" and as a matter of a fact, they sometimes change. At the beginning of the sport climbing era, you were supposed to place your own quickdraws in order to claim an onsight. Some say you are not allowed to touch the holds on a boulder you can reach from the ground and then call it a flash meanwhile others think you can do so and then actually onsight a boulder.