UKC

After reading a recent thread about putting together a first rack and watching a YouTube video where Pete Whitaker takes a novice climber out for his first trad lead, it seems that cams are the go to method of protection, even for beginners.

I am pretty sure that when I was starting to put a rack together 20 plus years ago the advice was to get a set of nuts and a few hexes, don't worry about cams initially as they are difficult to place properly and expensive.

Two questions then. Am I remembering correctly that the prevailing opinion was that nuts and hexes were the go to pro when starting out and if so, what has changed to make cams "acceptable" for beginners if this is even the case.

Cheers.

Cams aren't particularly difficult for splitter granite cracks like they were climbing. Think its more that if you dont learn how to place hexes when starting out, you never will. 

I'd argue that placing a good hex is harder than placing a good cam, in some rock.

I'm probably going to be corrected, but I think cams are more likely to fail on Limestone due to it being smoother rock than other rougher types. They need to be placed more carefully.

And most retailers seem to stock more cams and wires, with a few hexes these days. 

I think it all depends on where you climb and what the rock type is. I started climbing at the Avon Gorge, where cams are definitely not recommended as a part of a starter rack. Nuts and hexes are much more useful as a beginner (maybe not hexes as much). 

If you're starting on Granite splitters as mentioned above however, cams end up being safer and a more useful way to protect. 

Price is the most important factor here in my opinion. If you can afford a set of cams when you first start, you might as well, but a set of hexes costs the same as a single cam and arguably can be more bomber, especially on easier routes when you first start.

I've only just recovered from the last UKC cams vs hexes bunfight! https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/climbing_in_the_peaks_without_c...

Personally I do fair bit of trad on a variety of rocktypes and grades and outside mountain bimbling and winter stuff, I never carry hexes nor do any of my mates (im not sure some of them even own hexes, the horror!). 

In fact..... dare I say it......

Hexes are for punters. There, It's out there. I feel better for getting that off my chest.😉

What equipment a pro climber features in their YouTube might also have a relation to sponsorship. It is their living after all.

Also... if that novice climber happens to be a Parkour guru, high grade boulderer and very good "builderer" (bouldering/solo on buildings etc), they might not be a fair comparison to the average novice climber in the sorts of routes they'll be climbing in short order

I think you have probably hit the nail on the head with this comment being the reason hexes may have been advised over cams when starting out.

Once upon a time, it was thought that you needed to serve an apprenticeship in nails before you could use pumps. It was thought that a sensible leader should have a peg hammer to hand, just in case. It was thought that learning to cut steps remained an important formation. And that axes with leashes were best for novices. And how could anyone go into the hills in trainers rather than boots?

All dogmas come to an end, eventually.

I think there was a fair bit of stigma left over with cams being a bit black magic and not trusting a mechanism. When you put a nut in you pretty much know if it's bomber or not whereas if you look at a cam, it looks like yer gunna die! Maybe they are more tricky to place but I can't say I've ever found that since I started trad nearly 30 years ago (god that makes me feel old!) I had Hexes which I hated and never placed so I sold them and never looked back until recently when I bought some torque nuts for unattended toprope anchors. I actually quite like them now, but I can't say I'd drop cams in favour of them... 

Exactly! That and being defensive about the way cams tamed a previous generations' achievements.

Also most new (and old) users tend to over cam making them a rb to remove whereas hexes are usually a lot easier.

I know what you mean, and they are a RB to remove when overcammed as you say. But, when climbing with absolute novices, I usually place a lot of cams because, apart from being so fast to place and versatile, I find an intimidated novice can remove well-placed cams so easily compared even to nuts. Particularly if the novice seems a bit "fragile" in one way or another. So, it's cams and slings ideally, followed by the odd non-welded nut. I rarely bother with hexes, because, to get it to stick in a cammed placement, I might have to really seat it... and then it can also be a RB to remove.

Things do change. Always have, probably always will. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that. On the plus side, you can now start climbing conversations with the quality phrase - "back in my day".

Despite the valid complaints about rent & property prices, people are generally richer (on average) than 30 years ago, gear is actually a bit cheaper due to economies of scale and people's approach to sport & recreation has also evolved too.

In the late 1980s into the 1990s in UK climbing, there was a decisive move away from a mix of individually racked hexes of all sizes & medium nuts on cord towards using only larger hexes, plus nuts on wire (with quickdraws) due to ease of use. Obviously this resulted in carrying more equipment so was heartily encouraged by gear manufacturers. With the move towards racks being based around nuts on wire, the manufacturers also then conspired to convince people to buy entire sets of nuts by pricing them at a discount compared to buying individually.

The move away from hexes towards cams is more recent and I agree with you, it seems to be becoming ever more prevalent. Again, it is probably driven by the same forces; better performance, wealthier participants & marketing from shops & gear manufacturers. Also climbing has been following other sports where it is considered normal for beginners to want to buy and use the highest performance equipment. 

For some historical perspective, recommendated rack for beginners in Steve Ashton's Rock Climbing Techniques from 1987 is utterly comic by current standards consisting of only 7 pieces of protection and zero quickdraws. It is listed as:

- Rocks 3 & 4 on wire, Rocks 7,8,9 on cord, Hex 3, Hex 7 (racked on 6x karabiners) 

- 2 x 120cm slings c/w screwgates

- 2 x 60cm slings c/w karabiners 

Interestingly his recommendation as regards cams was a solitary Friend 3 for intermediate routes, and only an additional Friend 2 for hard routes! 

Despite the very pronounced and widespread trend towards ever larger racks, there is still a large element personal preference. Two of my main climbing partners (both E5 leaders) are like chalk and cheese. One carries the biggest rack imaginable, the other one the exact opposite which, memorably, left me improvising quickdraws with prusik loops before topping out of Huntman's Leap.

In terms of Winter climbing, every year I give myself a reality check by re-reading Martin Moran's recommendations on the size of rack required for mixed routes. His recommendations still seem more sensible compared to the racks I see most others carrying.

Hope that makes some sense and isn't too rambling... 

When I started climbing in the 70s the rack was a couple of moacs and chouinard wires plus a load of slings . I’d scare myself witless now if I repeated the routes we did then with that rack and the waist belays

Out of interest, where can we read Martin Moran's suggested mixed winter rack? TIA

Pick up a copy of Martin Moran's Scotland's Winter Mountains. It's a weighty hardback and if you skip to the middle chapters there is loads of history, great climbing anecdotes and general information that is still super relevant even if the design of boots & ice axes has moved on somewhat and there's now more accessible references available on avalanches and weather. 

Always loads of really cheap copies of the 1st edition available on eBay or Amazon marketplace. Currently the best price on eBay is the princely sum of £3.02.  Even the 3rd edition is only about £9-£10.

Grade II-III

Set of Wires 1-9; Hexes 7,8,9; 4-6 Pitons; 2x Warthogs, 3-4 120cm slings; 2x 60cm slings; 3x quickdraws

Grade IV-V

Set of wires 1-9; Hexes 7,8,9; 3-4 medium Cams; 6-8 Pitons; 1x Warthog, 2x 120cm slings; 3x 60cm slings; 6x quickdraws; 3x tie-offs (for pitons) 

Grade VI-VII-VIII

2 Full sets of wires; 2x Hexes; set of 7 Cams; 8-12 Pitons; 2x 120cm slings; 3x 60cm slings; 10x Quickdraws; 4x tie-offs (for pitons) 

NB old Hexentric sizes 7,8,9 is equivalent to Red, Gold and Blue (sizes 6,7,8) of the modern WC Rockcentrics or DMM Torque Nuts 2,3,4.

in winter it does depend a lot on the rock type and excpected icing of the cracks though right. For the cairngorms / granite I regulalrly found bomber cams, the big rough crystal really help here but less so on finer grained rock like the ben, southern highlands or glencoe etc. That said I would  still often carry some tricams, depending.

Thanks for this A lot of pitons compared to what is usually suggested today, but sparse overall!

That's slightly unfair Mark: 'hard' in Steve's selective guides was HVS/E1.

For what it's worth I'd still recommend a couple of hexes for novices (especially for polished limestone, or pockets where a cam won't work); and I wince sometimes watching some novices commonly place cams suboptimally and occasionally incorrectly.

My take on this - for what it's worth. I've always carried both. Green, Red and Gold hex's plus a (fairly) full range of cams. Cam's will go in most places hex's will, but a good hex placement is more reliable than a cam in the same place as the hex will still be where you placed it if you fall a move or two higher, whereas the cam may have "walked". On the other hand cams will give good protection in placements where hex's won't go (or will go, but only with great, potentially energy-sapping care) such as parallel sided or very mildly flared cracks. 

So, if faced with a choice of cam or hex early in a pitch, in a resting position, I'll generally go for the hex. It'll often be a more reliable placement. It also saves the cam for higher up the pitch when I may find a similar sized placement where only the cam will go, or where the climbing is strenuous and I need something I can place quickly.

Martin

I wouldn't base my opinion on the value if hexes based on people potentially using free/sponsored equipment online and what shops stock where margin is their primary interest. 

Imho a few smaller hexes on rope weigh nothing (well just over) and can often fit where you'd put a size 7,8,9 wire, they are already partially extended so once with a proper extender won't lift out, etc given that they are tapered on their sides, they can fit as a wire, not just camming. Even in winter, a gentle tap to bed in often results in bomber gear, where a cam in icy cracks clearly isn't. 

A few things spring to mind...

Economics and wealth is one... also a lot of newer climbers (at least oudoors) have started out climbing indoors, unlike in the olden days. So a lot are actually rather stronger physically, thus might also head for relatively harder routes than in the past (in the time of a few slings, nuts, hobnail boots as apprentice under the watchful eye of more experienced club members). So unlike in the past, nowadays even beginners might end up soon in terrain where placing gear is not possible with two hands.

And as apptly pointed, where and what you climb also affects what your rack consistent off... clean splitters, with no obstructions (think of indian creek)... yeah, nuts and even hexes don't really work all that well. Granite or similar with well formed vertical cracks (but with also some variance in the crack sizes), a mixture of cams and nuts often seems the best. Perhaps in super polished limestone, tricams, nuts and hexes makes more sense than nuts and cams (haven't climbed that much in such places.. either the cam locals have been more than good... or there has been a bolt).

Hexes (and tricams) still might serve a purpose for mixed climbs (with also different kinds of pins) and also Cams, but it really again depends where and what you are climbing...

For knobbly limestone cracks, I'd much rather throw hexes in than cams. Stuff like Medusa (E1 5b) at Stoney would be a horror-show on cams. I mostly prefer cams over hexes but I'll usually carry green/red/yellow hexes on mountain routes, as they're lighter than a double set of cams, good to use at belays (a)bomber b)easy to place well from belay ledges c)don't waste cams), can oft. be threaded through holes, and are a bit more confidence-inspiring in wet or green rock. 

My copy is at home, can you remind us of the type of rack he recommends?

Winter routes are weird, I find there is always something you have far too many of, and something else that you don't have enough of. My winter rack has been pretty constant for years, 2 sets of nuts, ten QDs, four being alpine draws, three or four hexes, four or five cams. Two hooks for turf, 2 x 120 slings, 2 x 60 cms slings. That's for mixed routes up to V. 

edit: just seen you had written it out in response to Chris. Thank you!

There ain't nothing wrong with being a punter! And I would have thought a beginner is as much as a punter as anyone else. That's a vote for hexes, then!

Like any other piece of gear, they both have their uses in appropriate circumstances. You can't beat a bomber hex in the right placement for a sense of security, but in many situations a cam will do just as well or even better, if it's placed correctly. But that last point is crucial. An experienced climber who knows how to place cams won't need hexes in most situations.  However I have often seen cams placed badly, even by those who should know better.

For a beginner it is usually easy to tell whether or not a hex placement is good, whereas a cam might appear OK but cannot actually be relied upon.  Added to the cost savings, it probably makes sense in most cases to advise beginners to buy several hexes rather than one cam.  But it will depend on the type of rock they climb, what grades they will be doing, and how much supervision by a more experienced climber they will be getting.

I witnessed a fall by a beginner on his first lead where a poorly-placed cam pulled, resulting in a ground fall and him being crippled for life. This was on quarried grit in what should normally have been a reliable cam placement. Would a hex have been any better? I can't say, but it showed to me how important it is that cams are placed correctly and how essential it is to make sure that novices understand this.

This sounds horrendous and I have a lot of sympathy for both the climber and you and others who witnessed it. What an awful moment, with awful repercussions.

Without wanting to be insensitive, I wonder if the correct lesson to draw is that novices should use hexes instead of cams? I think when we are introducing novices to leading, it has often been a case in the past of: "here's the rack, don't fall off." Certainly that's more or less how I began leading. I think there are a lot of ways we, as experienced climbers, can mitigate the dangers of learning these skills, beyond limiting the equipment novices have at their disposal. E.g. coaching, route choice,  mock leading, putting some gear in the route beforehand, dangling on a rope next to them, constructive criticism, etc. The other thing to say is, many easy routes are genuinely harder to adequately protect without cams (e.g. grit routes with lots of horizonal breaks).

Just thoughts.

And to bring this back to the original post, I assume the video series they are referring to is with the Youtuber who's been climbing for a year or so total (almost exclusively indoors), rather than Toby (who has bouldered f7c+ I believe? And also had a bit of sport climbing and trad crack experience prior to the Norway trip). The route that Pete took him up, then mock-led, then finally led, was Hargreaves Original. I'd like to see a beginner try and adequately protect that with hexes!

Some interesting points here. Thanks for the replies. 

I hope all the winter climbers don't judge me if I admit to not having even considered winter climbing!

The problem with cams is that they seem simple and obvious, but are easy to place badly without the correct knowledge. It's easy for a beginner to whack in a cam and think it's OK, whereas it's usually obvious whether passive gear is good or not, and this particularly applies to hexes. It's essential when climbing with novices to teach them how to use cams correctly, and keep a close watch that they do.

Absolutely. As I said, horses for courses.  Hargreaves Original is an example, and I wouldn't have considered it a beginner's route even with cams.  However "beginner" is a fairly meaningless term these days, it could mean a complete novice who hasn't climbed before, or someone with plenty of indoor experience for whom the actual climbing is straightforward and who just lacks experience with gear placement. For the latter, and (crucially) under the right supervision, it might be a reasonable objective. 

That's arguably one of the biggest differences to 30 years ago. Then people's gear placing skills advanced at a similar rate as their grade. By the time they were on tougher riskier lines, they should be fairly quick at placing good runners. Now you can have people starting outside quite capable of climbing 6a trad, but with very poor rope work, gear placing and belay stance management skills, plus zero sense of crag etiquette. 

The first time I went trad climbing on limey I tested this; placed a cam from the ground, clipped it directly to my harness, pulled it using my legs and promptly landed on my arse. It was a smooth slot but would have held in rougher rock. I decided to try not to use cams and to look for the roughest patches if forced to. 

Give it time. 

Cams depend entirely on friction and if the crack surfaces do not have the necessary coefficient of friction, either because the rock is smooth or because of rock dust, dirt, ice, or water, the cam will fail. Fortunately, because of the way the cam expansion forces scale with load, a vigorous jerk test is a fairly good way to estimate the reliability of the frictional environment.

I personally stopped using hexes forty years ago, finding that stoppers did everything hexes did but were more versatile.  Since then, I've occasionally put a hex or two on my rack but soon ditch them.

Although there are of course many nuances, a simple initial strategy is that nuts are for tapered placements and cams are for parallel-sided placements. Downsides are nuts can lift and cams can walk.

I had a short career as a punter leader in North Wales and only ever placed nuts. 

But I did build belays with cams when I had the time and clarity to be as sure as I could be about their placement....

Hexes seemed to have tendency to become dislodged from above as novice climbers trash around on the route above

But they do make that lovely cow-bell sound in the pub....

I know, it should depend only on the coefficient of friction regardless of the force on the cam. What I didn't say it that I gave the cam a jerk with my hands (ahem), which it held before I pulled it with my legs. Maybe it held on some microscopic irregularities which were deformed when a higher force was applied, or maybe it did slip a bit on my jerk test but not enough to notice.

Come and try Peak Limestone on cracks (mainly low extreme and below) and you might change your mind. Being more serious, learning to adjust racks for rock type and numbers of pitches is important.

On Paul's point above on Hargreaves... hexes can be used if you know how to make them cam (something I learnt fast as a beginner). In contrast, how many beginners carry three Camalot 3 size cams.... I've seen some terrible wobbles at the top of Hargreaves with inexperienced climbers using cams where the key sizes had been used well below. I was certainly glad of my bigger hex, when onsight, as my biggest of three cams was an old style rigid friend 3..... it's respectful to remember it was HS in the old days as a solo in plimsols.

The belay point above is important too... on longer pitches on a multipitch my hand/fist sized hex  is often reassuring on a belay when I can save cams for the parallel sided jamming cracks above. I've also fairly often used it on the pitch where it was the only gear that would fit a weird constriction or pocket (depending on rock type I take a few smaller tricams for smaller pockets). Finally,  it's much cheaper as bail gear.

Like Howard I think learning to lead trad can still be super risky so in my view a good teacher/partner is worth their weight in your surname.

If you are doing a longish route - say towards nearly a full rope length, then just imagine how many pieces of protection - and quick-draws/extensions - you might need. Now calculate just how heavy and bulky doing this purely using cams would be - particularly if you're nervous, as a relative novice would be.

Wires are much lighter and use up a heck of a lot less space, plus are cheaper. To a great extent so are hexes. Also remember that cams are more likely to creep in cracks when used for a main belay.

As such I'd always say start with wires and a couple of hexes, and then get cams when you can both afford them and have worked out how to use them without losing them.

If you have that problem, then you're doing it wrong.

Cams walk/creep if you place fluctuating force on them, often even that is not enough but you also need to apply the force at different directions.

Build a belay, make sure there is constant force on the belay and from one direction... case closed.

time of a few slings, nuts, hobnail boots as apprentice under the watchful eye of

Can I just make a small irrelevant point? Nobody, as far as I know, ever climbed in hobnail boots. Climbing boot nails were of two types; clinkers - soft steel wedge shaped nails into which the rock bit, and tricounis, hard steel with a serrated edge which bit into the rock. The Vibram sole is a rubber copy of the clinker nail pattern. I did have a chance to try out some clinker nailed boots back in the mid sixties. They needed very precise footwork but stuck like shit to a blanket, wet or dry.

You might well be right.  In fact I've never climbed trad limestone protected with nuts so there could well be blind spots.  Maybe I'd be digging those hexes out of the closet too.  But for the rocks I've climbed in the US I've never found hexes essential.

In the SW US multipitch I tend to carry just the one that fits wide to narrow hand cracks but have also used it in granite pockets. Normally I only double up cams 2 and 3, unless the guidebook indicates it has a long section of crack of the same width. Hence, perhaps, the extra usefulness at belays for us. I forgot to add another benefit is you can swing it into place above head height if the crux placement is out of reach. It's also a useful 'hammer' to clear stuck nuts using a nut key and a spare extender.

US climbers often seem to carry way too much gear (and as for carrying a spare climbing rope for raps... and not using it on the climb to cut drag....let politely say it's quite amusing to us). 

Before cams were invented I started my climbing career using hex,s, but fairly quickly stopped using them, preferring nuts of all sizes (remember MOAC,s) and have continued in this vein. I don’t habitually carry cams unless I know or can see they are going to be useful.

I would never use cams on limestone for the reasons already expressed, but on hard and relatively parallel granite and gritstone cracks they are really useful, saving time and effort in placing protection. 
As an aside the most useful nuts I ever used on limestone are the much missed RP,s and I carry two sets.

I have found that cams an be extremely useful on Limestone under certain conditions. This is where a pocket has been eroded which is larger inside than its' opening - obviously not a great deal larger inside or the cam would wobble all over the place. In these cases a cam, particularly one with a flexible stem, is bomber.

(I'd still say the most useful gear on limestone are nuts/wires though).

On blocky and compact limestone, sometimes you really need cams in the parallel breaks between bedding planes (thinking Avon/Wintours).

One of the few places where I've found a "double 0" to be an absolute godsend.

There is a lot of limestone in the world of all different kinds, and cams tend to work fantastically on limestone. I've never climbed Peak limestone, because a) I'm not a masochist and b) the Peak district is not the centre of the universe, despite what some people would have you believe. But, I've used and fallen on cams in limestone, and generally they only pull if badly placed.

I'm sure there is some debate about cams failing on smooth rock, I've never personally seen it happen and I don't think anyone has told me it happened to them. What is much more likely is that the limestone will break because it is a soft rock and the force exerted by cam lobes is much greater than by a reasonable-sized nut (I've personally seen cam lobes just carve a groove through limestone on their way out on a really small, garden variety fall).

Also worth noting that in well-used placements on popular climbs, my experience has been that nuts are quite hard to get well-seated and tend to sit loosely in their placement and be prone to either rattle or lift out depending on the direction the climb continues in, the extender length, etc.

In my experience cams have several advantages over hexes:

- They fit a wider range of placement sizes so you are more likely to be able to get the cam you pull off your harness in first time than with a hex.

- Cams are quicker to place when you are pumping out and s***-scared.

- Cams work in parallel cracks where hexes are, at best, dubious protection.

- Cams don't lose utility in a constriction placement because they will, in my experience, almost always work perfectly functionally, if not quite as nicely as a hex.

- Hexes add an extra weight to your harness when you have decided you need cams on the route anyway.

Hexes do have a couple of advantages too of course, though in my opinion not enough for me to want to carry them on the lead:

- They are cheaper than cams so when you are starting out, if you are an impoverished student, thumbing lifts, living off baked beans and washing dishes to get by, they make some sense.

- You can't beat the confidence a really good, bomber hex placement gives.

- If you are wont to overcam your cams, they can be a complete pita for the second to remove, hexes generally are not too tricky to remove (even easier if they are on a wire rather than dyneema).

- They make a cool musical accompaniment to your climbing efforts.

Hexes are good in winter, cams are not.

Lol... my two hexes that I still use are both on rope.

Hexes can be an absolute nightmare to get out if they're stuck! 

It’s not 20+ years ago anymore. Came are great. No reason to not use them, even as a novice.

Also pretty much useless, because you know, cams

Punters that often complain they can’t enjoy the peace and quiet of the mountains, whilst clanking around sounding like a scrapyard mid-shift.

Hexes are for punters. If you like them, you’re probably a punter. I you own them, you’re definitely a punter. If you use them… well you know the answer.

Cutting steps, or at least kicking them, is still a great skill to learn. If people did it would mean the trade routes wouldn’t become icy slip and slides, becasue people put full crampons on at the first sign of a snowflake 

We cannot all climb E10 7a like your fine self.

I found some of my original cams, there are also some number 3 and 4 knocking around. These, plus a couple of sets of WC Rocks plus some HBs was my rack around 1981, so 40 years ago…..

Try ditching the hexs, there all thats holding you back.

How are we defining punter? Unsophisticated buyers who are easily fleeced? People who take a gamble? Appreciate there's humour involved.

A few cams seem about the same price as a rope.

Personally I use a small rack including torque nuts and a couple of cams to help where former are already used or don't fit. Their slings are also useful in themselves. But then I climb low grades and now infrequently

Aging punter

Some one seems to have caught a heavy dose of iconoclasm this morning!

Laughing at people with hexes aside, this I don't get. Which "trade routes" do you have in mind? How does people using crampons lead them to becoming "ice slip and slides"? Surely lots of people using the same kicked or cut steps without crampons is far more likely to make those steps icy and smooth, than people stamping onto the same steps with crampons on?

Judging from my facebook feed which is mainly UK mountains conditions groups, everyone is completely obsessed with microspikes, and how they don't need actual crampons with them.

Normally, these days, occasionally leading to lowish extreme onsight and sport into mid 7s

I sometimes carry one or two hexes up a route. Cams mostly get placed in preference, but when you do find a place where only a hex would do, it gives me great satisfaction.

Yours,

Punter

I'm definitely a punter. I don't need you to tell me

I have both hexes and cams, and actually have more cams than hexes.  However if I find a good hex placement I'll use that, rather than a cam.  This is because (a) a bomber hex is a thing of beauty and means I probably won't die and (b) it saves a cam for another placement where a hex might not fit so well, or where I can't hang around to fiddle one in. 

Could it be that you're more likely to find useable hex placements on punter grades?  If that is true then it makes sense for punters to carry them, and equal sense for harder climbers not to.

Probably, and you'll be more able to prat around with them while you're ledge-shuffling up a VDif than you would if you were blasting up an E5. 

What about blasting up a VDiff and wobbling up an E5 on a top rope?

Am I a punter for putting two hexes on a 50m E3 ? netiher of them weight anywhere close to the weight of a cam. So to my mind I have saved myself having to carry a double set of cams. I'll put the hex in if I can and then save the cam for further up. There is very little penalty for carring 3 or 4 well choosen hexes. Perhaps I am because I esqueued a good friend placement in favour of a two good hex placements. silly me. 

We're all punters. Unless you're a pro climber then it's just a hobby. Just that some punters like to look down on other punters. 

There's an argument that buying £60 pieces of gear over £15 ones makes for the biggest punters of all. 

Punterdom is not a grade. It's a state of mind.

Oh god I can't take the guilt and shame any more.....

The last two pieces of gear I placed were both hexes, really big ones, proper cowbells. On a grade II as well. It was marvellous at the time, 'what good hexes' my wife exclaimed, but now I feel soiled and dirty.

I can recall people pratting about with hexes as they blasted up E5s.All punters obviously before 1977. 

So are mine, and easier to replace than on wire. By pushing the Hex nut to the middle of the rope I also have an extra extender if needed. 

I bet one of them is the trusty MOAC 

I have a Moac on a rope (and a full set of roped hexes and a few 'cleaned when stuck' spares I found and haven't yet given away) but these days I only take it out occasionally to show young people at home, alongside some other old stuff (mainly cleaned when stuck).

Pete Holden has the best collection of really old stuff I know and sometimes takes it to gear history events. The wackiest collection I've seen used to hang from the roof of Josuha Tree outfitters.

Eschewed?

😂

Bless you...

I started trad climbing during the pandemic, the advice is now split between 'official' articles recommending hexes and people commenting 'don't waste money on hexes, you'll end up buying cams anyway'.

I think cams are now more acceptable for trad beginners because they're easier to place with dual axles & flexible stems, plus 'beginners' will now tend to have a few years of indoor climbing and some sport/ bouldering behind them so will be getting on HVS/E1 fairly quickly - IME cams are less fiddly to place.

I have to admit to never having owned a Hex.  Though I am quite happy to borrow a few from a partner's rack, if the route looks like it will take them.  They are indeed very satisfying sturdy things. I can waste minutes faffing and twiddling to get that perfect rock solid gear in . Perhaps because I don't use them often. But I don't actually feel I need them.  I do have Cams, however. Brilliant things. They do indeed need placing correctly.  But that generally take but a few seconds to check.