How did ancient people access their cliff dwellings?

It’s 1100 CE and you are house hunting on the Colorado Plateau near the Little Colorado River in modern day Arizona. Peering over the rim of Walnut Canyon, you notice centuries of wind and water have eroded the softer limestone layers of the canyon wall to carve recessed ledges protected from the worst of the elements. Bust out the live, laugh, love signs – this would be the perfect place to build a cozy cliff dwelling community! You can hang out on the sunny side of the canyon in winter to stay warm, and shift to the shady side to stay cool in the summer heat. Conveniently, there is also ample flat land along the canyon rim for agriculture and game hunting.

Check, check, check.

Cliff dwellings of the Sinagua (without water) ancestral people, hundreds of feet from the plateau surface. — Cliff dwellings in the canyon wall at Walnut Canyon National Monument

Minor detail, how are you going to climb the ~185 feet down the cliff face to your home sweet home?

You build a ladder. Well, a lot of ladders. Large Ponderosa Pines with their long, straight trunks would have been a good starting place. Not having the modern comforts of Netflix and meal delivery apps probably meant the Sinagua people were in better physical shape for daily ladder climbing, but I bet they would be jealous of our athleisure wear.

Rooms were build into the natural ledges by building up rock, clay, and wood to form reinforced walls.

Cliff dwellings built with stone and mud into the limestone ledge of a canyon — Rooms were build into the natural ledges by building up rock, clay, and wood to form reinforced walls.

What do you think, is the million-dollar view of the striated canyon walls, swirling river below, and San Francisco Mountains in the distance worth climbing a wooden ladder on a cliff face every time you want to leave your house?