“Red Point”

Climbing Status Symbol

“Red Point”

RY

May 7, 2020

Informant Data:

RY is a 23-year-old Dartmouth College graduate from the class of 2019. She works at Appin in Arlington, Virginia, United States. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri on October 2, 1996. RY has three younger siblings: a younger sister who is 20, a younger sister who is 15, and a younger brother who is 11. Her mom was trained in real-estate but is now a stay-at-home mom. Her dad works in construction, he mixes chemicals and figures out the best pavement method. Both parents grew up in rural parts of China and moved to the United States in the early 90s. She is Asian-American, upper-middle class. Her family is very religious. She was raised Christian. She is religious but does not fully adhere to religion the way she was taught to in her upbring. She was a figure skater growing up. She started climbing during first year trips at Dartmouth College and after injuring herself she couldn’t skate. So she transitioned to climbing regularly. No one in her family climbs. She is the former Chair of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club and taught sport climbing during College. She is an outdoor sport climber primarily and has never competed. 

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: There are two types of sport climbing: top roping and lead climbing. Top roping refers to when there is an anchor at the top of the climb that the rope feeds through. This creates a system where the climber can be pulled up a climb by a belayer, this creates a system where the climber receives some assistance from the rope and when they fall they stay in the same place. On the other hand, in lead climbing the climber must clip the rope into bolts as they go up the climb, so there is no help from the rope and if they fall, they fall to the last place they were clipped in to. Due to these differences, there is more of a sense of accomplishment if you have led a route while leading. Climbers often track the routes they have completed and there are different indicators for how they completed the route (i.e. how many falls they took).

Social Context:  The vernacular term “red point” is used during conversation between climbers to describe how they climbed a route or how they hope to climb a route in the future. The term is most used in outdoor climbing, but could be used for indoor climbing. It can only be used for lead climbing. Climbers use it to mark their progress and say what level they climb in talking to other climbers. An example of the way “red point” can be used is: “I fell last time I tried this climb, but this time I didn’t fall. I guess I have a higher red point grade now.” This is also a piece of vernacular, so it has the function of connecting the community. However, it acts more as a way for a climber to signify how good they are at climbing and therefore how respected they are in the community. 

Text: 

I have recorded “red point” as closely as I could to the way RY told it. The following description is from the notes I took during the interview, and are paraphrases of what she shared during it.

The term “red point” in climbing refers to when a climber leads a route from start to finish without falling, particularly if they have attempted the climb before and not finished it or fallen while climbing it. People red point in order to define what is meant by climbing or completing a route. The connotation of “red pointing” is you worked on it after falling before and have now done the climb well. There is a large sense of accomplishment and pride that comes with a “red point.” It is a way to define your personal progress in climbing because it describes a certain level of skill. Experienced climbers that are leading routes use this term. It is a more technical term than completing or sending a route. The term “red point” comes from the tradition of spray painting a red circle on the bottom of a climb you tried and did not complete and then filling in the circle with red once you have done it without falling. Therefore, once you have done a climb without falling there would be a red point on the bottom of the climb. 

Roxanne Holden, 21

Dartmouth College

Russ 13

Spring 2020

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