A Brief (Caffeinated) History of my Favorite Climbing Word
Plus a few modern variations of the word...
The post A Brief (Caffeinated) History of my Favorite Climbing Word appeared first on Climbing.
In the 1980s in the Frankenjura, Germany, a new generation of free climbers began to leave their mark—literally—on the rock. On the area’s myriad short, pocketed limestone bluffs, Kurt Albert came up with the idea of painting a red circle at the base of a route he’d done all the moves on. Then, once he completed the climb without falling, he’d fill in the circle to indicate the route had been freed. Hence the “redpoint,” or rotpunkt in German.
But why that particular color?
The peripatetic Gunks climber Russ Clune’s excellent new memoir, The Lifer, details that evolutionary period in free climbing, when “rock jocks” began to free old aid routes or equip newfangled “sport climbs” on which, safely protected by expansion bolts, they pushed gymnastic difficulty. The Lifer also recounts Clune’s time with Albert and his compatriot, the legendary Wolfgang Güllich, who put up the benchmark 9a (5.14d) Action Directe in 1991. According to Clune, Albert got the idea of the “red point” from a coffee pot at Güllich’s climber crash-house in Obershollenbach, a suburb of Nuremburg. Writes Clune, detailing Albert’s response when asked, “[Kurt] motioned to the coffee pot we drank from every morning. There was a large red spot on its lip that one had to align to the spout in order to pour coffee. Ahh…now that made sense!”
The Frankenjura climbers loved their coffee, and so, it’s to them—and their addiction to java—that we owe this colorful, hyper-specific term. I mean, where else but in the world of rock climbing would “redpoint” not be gibberish?
Over the years, “redpointing” has spun off related terms. In the 1990s, there was “pinkpointing”: doing a route with the gear or quickdraws in situ, though with leaps in difficulty (read: radically overhanging, long-term projects on which the clippers stay hanging) and the use of perma-draws, the term has become moot, except on gear-protected climbs. And there was “brownpointing,” i.e., doing a route in shitty style—perhaps toproped up through a way-too-high bolt or sneaking off-route for a rest or using your toothbrush to mine out a hold the first ascentionist didn’t use. Climbers being the jargonheads that we are, we’ve spun off plenty of variations on “redpoint”; you just add “-point” to the end of another word to come up with some humorous new climbing term.
In alphabetical order, I therefore present a handful of modern variations on “redpoint” for your “readpointing” edification. (See how easy it is—even a burned-out, has-been magazine columnist can do it!)
Bedpointing: If you want to look cool in front of your friends, you might call this “pre-redpoint visualization.” But really, it’s just lying in your bed picturing yourself climbing hard shit because you’re too lazy to actually get out from under the covers and go try. More advanced practitioners will sample YouTubepointing, in which you watch videos on your phone of other people sending the route you’ve been picturing yourself climbing—from your bed.
Dadpointing/Mompointing/Parentpointing: I’ve mastered this one, because I have three little kids and need to map out my days down to the minute. In parentpointing, you go up on a route and try your absolute fucking hardest—slop, bobbled moves, fear of falling, and redpoint jitters be damned; just ignore all of it—because you booked this climbing day way in advance, you have no idea when you’ll get back to this particular route, and the second you get home your spouse and/or kids are going to need something from you that has jack-shit to do with climbing and takes 4,000 times longer than you’ve been told it will. (Ever tried figuring out the installation beta on a baby’s car seat? The crux of Silence is simpler….)
Hammockpointing: This is the same as bedpointing, except you bring a hammock to the crag and hang it from some trees below the route you aren’t trying, all while spraying beta at people who are trying the climb, whether they want it or not. Bonus points if you use a megaphone.
Hangboardpointing: Instead of rock climbing, you just try to get stronger and stronger on the hangboard, so you can post videos on social media of your “inspiring feats” and get validation from your personal army of fawning fanboys, wanking wannabes, and slow-witted simps for your otherwise sad, empty, narcissistic existence. I heard the world record for a 10-second max-hang one-finger front lever on the 6mm edge is 150 kilos of added weight—you should try to beat it. No warm-up needed!
Trainingpointing: This is similar to vanitypointing (see below), but done solely for “training” purposes and never, ever on a deload week. However, it is allowed on “rest days,” as long as you let everyone within earshot know that today, of course, is your rest day and so your performance doesn’t count. “It’s for training.”
Vanitypointing: If too many beatdowns are making you feel smaller than the crux crimp on Megatron, you may be in need of a quick ego-booster shot. The quickest way to accomplish this is vanitypointing—getting on a route that’s way over your head (and you damned well know it) solely to be seen trying a route of that grade by your peers. A prime spot for this is the roadside Project Wall in Rifle, Colorado; make sure to give everyone driving by the elitist “Project Wall Stinkeye” before you hop on your 5.14 vanitypoint du jour!
YourNameHerepointing: If your first or last name appear before the suffix “-pointing” then you are being slandered by your peers. For example, back in the 1990s in Colorado, one climber was infamous for having very high bolts pre-clipped on his redpoints, so naturally, doing a route in this style took on his name. However, given that I used this very style two years ago to send a route with the sixth bolt preclipped (yes, you read that correctly—the sixth bolt; sue me), I probably don’t have a leg to stand on. And, if there’s any justice in the universe, this practice would now be called Sametpointing.
Matt Samet is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado, and the author of the Climbing Dictionary.
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