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Climbing Legend Kurt Albert Killed In Fall
German climbing legend Kurt Albert is in critical condition in a German hospital after falling some 60 feet from a via ferrata in Bavaria on Sunday. There are conflicting reports about his condition, but either way the situation sounds very serious.
The 56 year-old Albert has had many notable achievements over the years, but his most lasting contribution to the sport of rock climbing may be his coining of the term rotpunkt or redpoint which came about in the mid-70's when Albert would put a red dot under routes he had successfully climbed.
Update: Here's a 1993 interview Rock & Ice did with Albert that they posted on their website
Update #2 - 9/29/2010: Unfortunately Albert passed away yesterday due to injuries sustained in the fall. My thoughts are with his family and friends. Planetmountain has a nice obituary.
7 comments
Sadly Kurt Albert has passed away yesterday at 8:45 pm. His death really is a tremendous lost for the (German) climbing community. Planetmountain.com has a well written obituary that shows his immense contribution to our sport.
(http://planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=37604)
I'm so sorry to hear about Kurt. This is a tragedy for all of us.
How does one fall off a via ferrata to their death? Makes all that hardware kinda pointless?
Very little info regarding what happened on the interwebs.
I've been wondering the same thing. Not that knowing will change anything, but it would be interesting to find out what exactly happened.
Yah, wondering the same thing. Been on some sketchy via ferrata in my life but never any fear of death... Scary. Rest in Peace brother.
http://www.alpin.de/news/news/56fef733-2ef9-46f4-9893-9b7d17cd9416 (German) says that he wasn't secured...
RIP
We lost another legend. This dude put up one of the greatest routes on the planet with Eternal Flame. That he fell to his death from a via ferrata after all the vertical miles of bold climbing he's done in his life is almost unbelievable.
Here's a great read on eternal flame: http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=37017