 Well, you've seen ours, got any more minor miracle ways of making life easier when the going gets rocky?
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 If you're not carrying a rope, take a length of 4mm cord, sometimes it's easier to haul your rucksack up after you.
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Oh and of course the old one of photocopying the relevant pages of the guide book.
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When down climbing and facing forward, make sure that if your carrying gear that is is packed away. There is nothing more embarrassing and potentially dangerous than being snagged up facing forward unable to free yourself out on the hill.
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Funny how you can always find a perfect rock placement when downclimbing some precarious descent route when you've not found a decent one all day... We've all been there. On the Horseshoe the other day a couple of guys had just finished a route on Lliwedd and one was trailing the tails of his rope about a foot off the ground, just needed his mate to tread on it.
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Oh, also I suppose I should mention that if you're roped together on a sharp ridge, with no gear in, then if your partner goes off one side, you should, of course, launch yourself off the other. Not something I ever want to try. On most ridges you can improvise protection by threading the rope through spikes and / or placing the odd runner as you go.
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 Take a few minutes at the bottom of the scramble to scope out your route using your map and guidebook, making a mental note of distinguishing features. Once you're up there it's a whole lot harder to work out whether you're on the correct line unless you've got some intermediate landmarks to aim for.
Agree how to communicate with your partner(s) at the start - standard climbing calls are best, but don't assume everyone knows them until you've checked. You might want to work out a system of rope tugs too.
Never make any move you can't reverse unless you have a rope and abseiling skills.
If you don't have specialist footwear, go for light, bendy and grippy, even trainers, over most big boots. Try to avoid anything with a convex rand profile, which will limit your edging ability.
Think that's enough for now.
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 The good news is, don't worry too much about taking a tumble. If you do, adrenaline will kick in, you'll get booted into the next dimension, everyting will start happening in slo-mo like in the Matrix, and you won't really be aware of what's happened till it's all over!
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 That is sooooooo comforting Bob...thanks for that one
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 and of course, as long as you don't hit anything on the way down, the last six feet or so will be the only ones which will hurt!
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at the start, especially if it's a long route, if you're not sure about needing to rope up, you can put harnesses on, then the one with a rucksack big enough to take the rope, ties in to one end of the rope then feeds it into their pack (working from their end) leaving the other end just out of the pack, then if you come to a bit you want to rope up for it's, tie in to the other end feed out the amount of rope you want, figure of eight on the bight for the leader or feed all the rope out and belay!
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That's called back-coiling into a rucksack and we learned about that on my MLT course.
It takes a while to coil the rope so it pays out freely, but when it does it's really good for keeping rope under control.
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 Ya gotta do a course!
learn the basics of rock climbing, then you are well prepared for any scrambling you wish to do with added confidence and good ropework skills.
I recommend Www.rockandice.net as they offer loads of great courses and holidays.
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 Alex don't coil the rope into your sack just push it in randomly. If you Form coils as you stow the rope, for some reason it always snags.
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Ah but there's a knack to the coiling...just like coiling a hose in the garden. Just "stuffing" it in means it's deffo going to snag.
Back-coiling is a different technique from normal rope coiling (or so I was told on my course!)
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Alex firefighters all over the country use the random stowage method of rope storage and it works . We just hold one end and throw the bag away. This same method is also used by cavers when doing long abseils, they just clip a rope bag randomly stowed to hang below them and abseil that way the weight of rope does not slow them down. I see what you mean about coiling the rope like a garden hose, but can't imagine doing it in a gale with the rain lashing down. Why not try randomly stuffing a rope into a rugsack and pulling the end just to see if it works!!!!
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I assume that the stuffing isn't as "random" as I expect. I take it that the rope is first payed out correctly and then pushed in along its length rather than by just picking up a bunch of rope and stuffing it...surely that is asking for it to snag on itself?
But I'm gonna try it tomorrow! Maybe the guy running the course was trying to make it look more special than it was...It certainly was a pain in the ass back-coiling 50m of 11mm rope!
(and before you say anything, I know 11mm is thick, but it was what we had to work with for and I quote the chap "health and safety reasons")
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 Once you get to the top, and have your well-earned rest, hold onto your rucksack! It wasn't a scramble, but if anyone has seen Cribyn, imagine somone (not me I hasten to add) lugging 25lbs tot he top, and putting down his pack. Turns around for a look at Pen-y-Fan, and turns to get a choccy bar out of his rucksack to see it rolling away 500feet below him, and two people lay down just about where the rucksack had rollen.
It had actually hit them! They were fine, but the rucksack and every thing in it was smashed or covered in orange squash.
Note Do not take drinks in breakable containers, and remember that even with a rucksack liner, or a waterproof rucksack, pack everything individually in plastic bags!
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I've seen someone do something similar with a snow shovel!, extremely funny seeing someone wearing crampons chasing a shovel down a hillside, and we didn't take the piss at all!!!
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The random stuffing of the rope is called 'pouring'. When you're falling it really does go 'slo mo', it's the only time I've been able to summersault!
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