In reply to fuzzysheep01:
One piece of gear sticks in my mind. There's a tale, of course.
One July, on a very wet Saturday, a mate and I had climbed Milestone Direct in big boots and with sacks as alpine training and then, as the rain poured down, gave climbing up as a bad job and ended up in Pete's Eats for an early tea. Eventually, we convinced ourselves that the rain was easing and dragged ourselves up to climb
Nea (VS 4b). Pretty much as soon as we started climbing, the rain came back with a vengeance; nevertheless, on we went. It seemed to take a long time and then, after climbing the second pitch, the guidebook stopped making sense (we later found out that rocks that formed the old third pitch had fallen off a few months before). We couldn't identify anything and, by now completely soaked and rather cold, I set off through heather and boulders just to get to the top of the crag by whichever way I could. That took a long time too, testing holds for stability and balancing precariously on the roots of vegetation that I hoped was firmly anchored. Somewhere in the midst of this, I found a no. 6 hexentric in a crack. Why it was there in the middle of the heather and boulders, far from any route, I had no idea but since the only protection I'd managed to get so far was slings hopefully tied round some heather, I clipped it and carried on, eventually reaching the top of the crag in what was by now a dreadful evening. By the time my mate had followed me to the top of the crag and handed me what protection I'd had - including that hexentric - it was dark, and we had no torch. We wandered around trying to find the path down, but couldn't; we thought we could see a spot where it ought to be lower down, so rather than shiver and drip our way around the top of the crag we set up an abseil and slid down the rope to, happily, the path. We left the ropes where they were, got back to the car and just made last orders at The Vaynol by a whisker. The next day we got the ropes back and drove home with the car heater on full.
About five weeks later, we'd just climbed the Aiguille du Plan by the south face and were heading for the Aigulle du Midi, so doing the
Midi-Plan Traverse (AD) the opposite way to the usual route. The ice was a bit thin and rather than traverse under the first rognon, we climbed onto it; we'd seen a piton, so thought that was ok. It wasn't, really, but we didn't want to get back onto that ice. My mate (the same one as before) led a traverse left along the rock, at one point improvising protection from jammed knots in slings as we didn't have much rock gear wih us. I followed and then on my lead, tried to find a way upwards. I could see a ledge with a small crack splitting the rock and running down. I made my way to it cautiously. It would need a committing move to reach the ledge, one I couldn't easily reverse or back out of once started. What did I have that would fit in that small crack?
You guessed; that no. 6 hexentric. It slid into the crack as though it had been designed for that sole purpose, seated perfectly. I made the moves to the ledge and from there much more easily to the top of the rognon and a safe belay. And that gear placement was lodged not just in the rock but also in my memory. Sun-warmed Chamonix granite, a great gear placement and moves you have to commit to but which are easier than you thought. Could a climber really ask for more?
T.