In reply to TobyA:
> I liked "Firstly: you and your belayer should be wearing a helmet", which left me thinking, one each makes life much easier! But silliness apart, this is an interesting point - I wonder why Hazel says this but, at least in the numerous photos I have seen of her climbing over the last few years, she doesn't wear one herself? It seems a bit unlikely that she often wears one and it just by chance that in all the photos that go into the magazines and catalogues she isn't? People shouldn't be made to wear helmets if they don't want to, but it just seems peculiar advice if she prefers not to.
"don't do as I do, do as I tell you" ;{p
Seriously though, without wanting this to deteriorate into a helmet debate thread, she is talking about loose rock in that section. If you can be pretty sure the rock is solid where you are climbing then you can decide not to apply the helmet rule.
As far as she is concerned, I guess a lot of her climbing photos are on headpointed routes (yes, I know she climbs a lot of hard on sights too, don't jump on me!) and if you are headpointing something, you really already know there is nothing that is going to snap off/pull out when you climb it.