Kurt Albert

Kurt Albert (1954 to 2010) was a German climber and photographer, born in Nuremberg, who is credited as the pioneer of the redpoint concept in free climbing. A mathematics and physics teacher before committing to climbing in 1986, he began climbing at fourteen and climbed the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses at seventeen. In the Frankenjura he painted a red cross on pitons he did not need as holds and a red dot at the base of a route once he had freed it, which gave English the term redpoint from the German Rotpunkt. He died on 28 September 2010 in Erlangen, two days after a fall at a via ferrata in Bavaria.