Rob was remembering his climbing days and how hard he used to climb. Back when the Gunsight formation collapsed at Seneca Rocks, he said it opened the cave next to it. He was one of the first people to attempt the roof. His partner had led and was sitting at the belay station as Rob came up over the edge. They were going to swap lead there, and Rob was reaching down for a hold to unclip, when the rock he was standing on rolled off the edge and crashed below. That left Rob hanging in space, fourty feet off the deck and well below the roof rim. Right after being glad that was one of the few times he was on a rope, he realized that he had nothing to use as Prusik to get up, and the rope was jammed so the belayer could not lower him either.

A man happened to come up the trail and saw the situation. He had hoped to find someone to climb with there, so he did have gear, but it was back in the car. Rob was hanging in the harness for the two hours it took for the man to come back, still in business dress pants and white shirt, to scramble up a nearby easy route to throw his rope to the belayer to get Rob down.

After that, Rob always carried complete escape gear.

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What kept the belayer from tying the rope to an anchor, rap down and give help? They didn't bring enough rope to rap, planning to top out?