The redpoint revolution
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Kurt Albert was one of the best climbers of his generation and a pioneer of free climbing. In 1975, he developed the redpoint philosophy that shaped climbing all over the world – and inspired a HANWAG rock shoe.
In spring 1975, HANWAG was looking for the right name for its new shoe. Around the same time, Kurt Albert painted a red circle at the base of the Streitberger Schild rock face in Frankenjura, at the foot of Adolf Rott Ged.-Weg. Once he’d completed the route, climbing it from bottom to top with no falls, he filled in the circle with red paint and a new term was born: the rotpunkt (redpoint). His redpoint showed that he had climbed a route using just muscle power and nothing else to help him make progress, i.e. that he had free climbed it. Ropes and pitons or other protection were allowed, but only to prevent a fall, and never to pull or stand on.
Fifty years on, you could be forgiven for seeing redpointing as a kooky idea dreamt up by a bunch of over-excited youngsters, but then you would be overlooking the impact it had at the time and forgetting how important it is still today. By the mid 1970s, conventional climbing had reached a crossroads, rock climbing was now a sport in its own right, not just training for mountaineering The UIAA difficulty scale for climbing routes still only had six grades, yet people had been doing harder climbs than this for some time. Traditionalists were still climbing in heavy leather boots with aid ladders, while a younger generation had long since recognized that the game was changing. Climbing was undergoing a rapid transformation. In fact, these days, it’s hard to imagine just how quickly redpointing changed things.
You could say that the ROTPUNKT models are a nod to Kurt Albert and his contemporaries and that they pay homage to his legacy. After all, the red point was a bright signal that marked the start of a new era, a colourful manifestation of a new style of climbing. Redpointing revolutionized climbing in the 1970s and continues to shape the sport as we know it today – and not just in the Fränkische Schweiz (Frankenjura) where Kurt Albert was born – but as the standard free-climbing ethic applied the world over. It’s still the term used to describe a clean ascent and there’s even a climbing magazine called “Rotpunkt”. Kurt Albert himself would probably have been the last person to have expected it. In his outstanding biography “Kurt Albert. Free Thinker – Free Climber – Free Spirit” (sadly available in German only ), Tom Dauer writes: “He didn’t consider his redpointing as a concept, and definitely did not view it as a philosophy. He just saw it as one of many possible ways to pursue the joy of climbing.”
His staple diet: beer and coffee, meat loaf rolls and roast pork.
Nevertheless, Kurt Albert became a pioneer for a new generation of athletic, performance-orientated sport climbers, who seemed to know no boundaries. “He was just this great big Bavarian brick of muscle,” said British star climber Jerry Moffatt who trained and climbed with Kurt Albert, and was amazed at how naturally powerful he was. The grades got harder and harder. In less than 10 years, seven grades were added to the scale. This was also helped by improvements in equipment, and feedback from athletes such as HANWAG product tester and pioneering climber Sepp Gschwendtner – there were stronger pitons, more reliable ropes and shoes with grippier rubber climbing soles. Because even if technical equipment or “aid” as it was known was an anathema, it made climbing much safer, especially when new routing. In 1984, HANWAG introduced the iconic Crack Spezial, part of the first generation of climbing shoes and the grandfather of today’s ROTPUNKT models.
With his redpoints brightening up the dull, grey rockfaces, Kurt Albert was an early representative of a countermovement for subsequent generations who saw redpointing as the holy grail. Yet, at the end of the day, redpointing is all about being free. Albert himself disliked norms and rules. His staple nutrition was beer, coffee, Leberkässemmeln (meat loaf in a bread roll) and ‘Schäufele’, as roast pork shoulder is called in his native Franconia. He never gave up smoking, as Albert himself once said, his life was a “pearl necklace of broken resolutions”.
“He didn’t regard his redpointing as a concept, let alone a philosophy – it was just one of many ways to pursue the joy of climbing.”
Tom DauerWherever Kurt Albert was, there was always fun, material goods meant little to him. He never seemed envious, even when other climbers and friends, such as the great Wolfgang Güllich, surpassed him. This is how he’s portrayed by those who knew him and travelled with him to crags and mountains all over the world – from the Karakoram to Patagonia. Tom Dauer describes him, together with the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, as a “virtuoso unsuited to everyday life”, as someone who represents all those “for whom doing is more important than being and being is more important than appearances”.
In autumn 2010, Kurt Albert died at the age of just 56. Tragically he was killed in a fall after a mistake on a via ferrata in the Frankenjura region north of his hometown of Nuremberg. This from someone who had survived the harshest conditions on some of the most difficult rock faces in the world.
Kurt Albert defined free climbing and inspired us with his wild adventures. His ROTPUNKT free spirit lives on.
HANWAG ROTPUNKT family
This year is the 50th anniversary of the first ever redpoint by free-climbing pioneer Kurt Albert and HANWAG is launching an extended collection of Rotpunkt models, including the ROTPUNKT Low LL with its leather lining for women & men and the ROTPUNKT Light Low (GTX) sneaker for women & men. Inspired by the redpoint spirit of the 1970s and 1980s and free climbing pioneers Kurt Albert, Sepp Gschwendtner and co. who wore HANWAG’s legendary climbing shoes at the time, they combine retro design with modern comfort and functional details.
