A year or two before Anderson gained the summit, John Conway, the master
trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons, who climbed smooth
rocks like lizards, made a bold effort to reach the top by climbing
barefooted up the grand curve with a rope which they fastened at
irregular intervals by means of eye-bolts driven into joints of the
rock. But finding that the upper part would require laborious drilling,
they abandoned the attempt, glad to escape from the dangerous position
they had reached, some 300 feet above the Saddle. Anderson began with
Conway's old rope, which had been left in place, and resolutely drilled
his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and
making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the
last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some
irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to climb
a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling again,
and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From this
slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway which
he hoped to complete in time for the next year's travel, but while busy
getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the wealth he hoped
to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all alone in his little
cabin.
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