>>308583The safest thing I could've done at the time, which I didn't, would have been to do something like this. I would've tied a figure-8 bight in the rope, clipped it to the bolt/belay (don't remember which it was), and rappelled from that. I had enough rope that a single rope covered the whole pitch, bottom to top, and tying off at this point, even if it were just a single bolt, would have been safer than just the stopper knot.
But, I would have had to hike back to the top, tie my rope off properly there, rappel down to the midpoint, untie that, get to the bottom, and then hike to the top, again, to retrieve the full rope. It would've been well dark at that point.
>>308566I'm not quite sure what you mean by fly the rope on the belay. This was a decent difficulty pitch, some overhang involved. It was getting dark, and I was by myself. There is no way I was going to be able to climb up, self belayed. Besides, by the time I realized what I'd done, the other end of the rope was out of reach, I could see the stopper knot snaking up the mountain above me as I was pulling down the rope, so anything I did on the rope would've been supported by the stopper knot.
I was young and stupid (still am, but learning), and was willing to risk my life for a piece of rope. This same thing could have happened though in a group climb, midday. If this happened in the middle of a multi-pitch descent, one person would have had to ascend 35m of rope on prussiks, all supported by that stopper knot, to retrieve it. Otherwise the group would be stuck at that belay point. I posted it as both an example of my stupidity, and as a reminder: tie good stopper knots, because you might actually need them to hold your weight, but make sure to untie them at the appropriate times.
