Helmets or not?

[ynot]

wear it anyway don't be a shmuck

[kato]

Just finished belaying a buddy one time, and lowered him. We were standing there chatting as he started to pull the rope. Then he looked up and a rock about the size of a pack of cigarettes hit him right in the forehead, below the rim of the helmet. Knocked him clean out for about 10 seconds. Took two lessons away from that- 1) small rocks are nasty but the helmet can protect against those 2) IF the rock hits you in the helmet.

[Ascentionist]

Yeah, had a similar instance where the rope dislodged a rock about the same size (I always said the size of a pack of cards, go figure) and came straight down along the rope and hit my father-in-law in the hand as he was extracting the rope from a belay device. He has worn a helmet 100% of the time while at the cliff after that instance because he recognized how bad it would have been if it had hit him anywhere else.