Redpoint (climbing)

For other uses, see Red Point (disambiguation).

In rock climbing, a redpoint is the free-climb of a route by lead climbing where the climber never used the rope, or any other artificial aids such as their climbing protection, to hold any of their weight during the climb (i.e. if they fall, they must never weight the rope). The climber is allowed to have practiced the route many times beforehand — such as by headpointing or by top roping — and/or to have failed on numerous previous attempts.

Kurt Albert climbing at the "Streitberger Schild" near Streitberg, Frankenjura, Germany, where the first Rotpunkt was made in 1975.

Climbers will try to redpoint a route after having failed to onsight the route, which means to free-climb a route on the first attempt with no falls and no prior beta, or to flash the route, which means to free-climb the route on the first attempt with no falls but with prior beta. The first successful redpoint of a climbing route, in the absence of any prior onsight or flash, is recorded as the first free ascent (FFA) of that route.

Description

When a climber attempts a to redpoint a climbing route, it doesn't matter how many times that they have previously failed on the route, and/or whether they have practised any or all of the individual movements the route, and/or whether they conducted any prior inspections of the route (e.g. by abseil).

If the climber falls during an attempted redpoint ascent, and thus ends up in a position of hanging from their rope (i.e. their bodyweight is being held — even partly — by the rope), then they must return to the bottom of the climbing route, pull their rope free of the route (i.e. free it from any climbing protection), and completely re-start their ascent from scratch. The process of pulling the rope free before re-starting is also known as "climbing a route clean", but it should not be confused with the broader topic of clean climbing.

Climbers can pause and rest during a redpoint ascent but they cannot use the rope, or any other artificial aids, to hold their bodyweight while they rest — completely unaided techniques such as the kneebar and the bat hang are allowed. The term "hangdoging" is where the climber rests on the rope after falling but then restarts climbing without returning to the ground, which is not a redpoint. The first climber to redpoint a route, in the absence of any prior onsight or flash of a route, has made the first free ascent (FFA) of that route.

Where quickdraws are pre-placed into the fixed protection bolts on sport climbing routes, so that climber is just clipping the rope into the quickdraws as they ascend, it is called a "pinkpoint"; in practice, most ascents of extreme sport climbing routes are done as pinkpoints, as are ascents in modern competition climbing, so the term "pinkpoint" is no longer used in sport or competition climbing. However, due to additional significant challenge of placing climbing protection while ascending traditional climbing routes, traditional climbers continue to typically differentiate on whether their first ascent was a pinkpoint (e.g. as Swiss traditional climber Didier Berthod did on making the first ascent of The Crack of Destiny in 2023).

Comparisons

The unlimited practicing that is allowed before making a redpoint ascent contrasts with the historical aversion to "headpointing" (i.e. practicing the route on a toprope beforehand) in traditional climbing. In the early 1980s, redpointing was therefore a term largely exclusive to sport climbing. While headpointing was then considered a lesser form of first free ascent in traditional climbing (and an FFA that was headpointed would be asterisked as such), leading traditional climbers eventually followed the redpointing practices of the sport climbers, and by the 2000s, had largely dispensed with the stigma associated with headpointing.

From about the 2010s, traditional climbers were using the derived term "greenpoint" (or the Grünpunkt, as a play on the Rotpunkt), to describe climbing a pre-bolted sport-climb, but only using "traditional protection" (i.e. climbing protection that is not permanently fixed via pre-placed bolts or pitons); as with redpointing, the climber may have repeatedly practiced falling on the “traditional protection” before making their greenpoint ascent. Notable examples include Austrian climber Beat Kammerlander's greenpoint of Prinzip Hoffnung (5.14a R, 2009) in Bürs in Austria, and Canadian Sonnie Trotter's greenpoint of The Path (5.14a R, 2007) in Lake Louise, Alberta, and of East Face (Monkey Face) (5.13d R, 2004) at Smith Rocks.

Projecting

Repeatedly attempting a redpoint can take place over any length of time, from hours to years (i.e. any time, once the initial onsight or flash has failed). Climbers use the term projecting to denote a longer-term project to complete the FFA, or their own personal first ascent, of a route that is at the limit of their abilities. The redpoint FFA of many of contemporary sport climbing routes, particularly those that involved breaking new grade milestones, took years, and even decades, to project (e.g. Realization, La Dura Dura, and Jumbo Love).

Bouldering climbers also use the terms onsight and flash in relation to ascents of boulder problems, they mostly use the term projecting — instead of the term redpointing — when discussing longer-term attempts of FFAs or personal first ascents.

Etymology

The English term "redpoint" is a loan translation of the German Rotpunkt that was coined by Kurt Albert in the mid-1970s at Frankenjura. Albert would paint a red "X" on any fixed metal pitons on a rock climbing route so that he could avoid using them while climbing, thus not using any artificial aid. Once Albert was able to free-climb the entire route, and avoid all the red "X"s, he would then paint a red "dot" (the "Roter Punkt") at the base of the route. His first Rotpunkt was the aid climbing route Adolf-Rott-Gedächtnis-Weg (V+/A1) at the Streitberger Schild crag in the Frankenjura, which he freed at 6a+ (5.10b) in 1975. Albert got the idea for the "red dot" from the logo and name of a brand of German coffee and kettle maker. To achieve a Rotpunkt, Albert additionally defined that if a climber fell during the ascent, they had to return to the base, pull the rope free, and re-start the climb from scratch (i.e. as if the climber had only just approached it).

The connotation spread of a "redpoint" being a route that had to be repeatedly attempted because it was so hard – which is why metal pitons had been hammered into the rock as an aid in the first place – until it could be climbed in one clean push (i.e. no falls, and any falls required a full re-start), and without any artificial aids. Because these routes were already established aid climbing routes, Albert could not remove the pitons (that would happen in later decades), however, his Rotpunkt laid down a mark to other climbers that the route could be free climbed without the use of the metal aids, and thus became an important moment in the development of free climbing. Eventually, Albert's Rotpunkte became associated with the development of sport climbing in the 1980s, as many of these aids were on routes that had no possibility of even natural traditional climbing protection (e.g. no cracks), and thus bolts would be needed for protection (but not aid).

Notable redpoints

Main articles: List of grade milestones in rock climbing § Redpointed by men, and List of grade milestones in rock climbing § Redpointed by women

Notable redpointed climbs are chronicled by the climbing media to track progress in rock climbing standards and levels of technical difficulty; in contrast, the hardest traditional climbing routes tend to be of lower technical difficulty due to the additional burden of having to place protection during the course of the climb, and due to the lack of any possibility of using natural protection on extreme sport climbs.

As of May 2024, the world's hardest redpointed routes are Silence by Adam Ondra, DNA by Seb Bouin, and B.I.G. by Jakob Schubert, which are all at a proposed grade of 9c (5.15d), and none of which have been repeated. As of May 2024, four female climbers Angela Eiter, Laura Rogora, Julia Chanourdie, and Anak Verhoeven have redpointed established routes at the grade of 9b (5.15b).

See also

• Beta (climbing)
• History of rock climbing
• List of grade milestones in rock climbing

External links

• What is a flash in climbing?, HardClimbs (2023)
• What is an onsight in climbing?, HardClimbs (2023)
• Redpoint vs Pinkpoint vs Headpoint, HardClimbs (2023)
• Watch Alex Megos Red Point Film Rotpunkt, a 2020 film by Alex Megos on the history of the "Rotpunkt" (Gripped Magazine, February 2020).