As illustrating the way not to use a rope, an amusing story is told of the first difficulty on the Needle ridge. Two young fellows had walked up to the foot of the gully with another party of climbers, and had lazily discussed their lunch and their plans for the day while the others were busy on the Needle. After deciding that they knew the Needle too well to learn anything by climbing it, they went on to examine critically, from a distance, the Eagle’s Nest opposite and to point out the way that they would insure their own safety in an attack on it. They scoffed at its reputed severity, and would really have then and there shown the neatest method of vanquishing it. On the other hand, it was a warm day, and they felt a little slack. Perhaps the Needle Ridge would tickle their jaded appetites a bit. Yes! they would walk up the ridge and get some fresh air 400 feet higher. Then they tossed up for leadership, and tied on their forty feet rope--one man at each end. Away went the leader from the notch, over the slab and up the chimney. When at the end of his rope it occurred to him to look back and see what his companion was doing. The poor fellow had stuck at the slab, and was in imminent danger of falling backwards. ‘Good gracious, man, what are you thinking of?’ shouted the indignant leader. ‘I am not going to be pulled down for any one!’ and promptly began to unrope himself. Then the man who tells the story hurried up from below, and fortunately arrived in time to prevent a catastrophe. Such an aspect of the utility of the rope need scarcely be commented upon, but I was not surprised a day or two after hearing the story to be characterized by a non-climbing acquaintance in town as a desperate venturesome individual, one who went about climbing mountains _with a rope_. By non-climbers a rope must indeed be regarded as a source of danger. The plainest view of the upper platform of the Needle and the awkward corner that rises from it is to be had at the expense of a few minutes’ digression from the ridge. It is best to climb from the top of the grass chimney over to the right, and then down a steep and loose recess to a grass platform. A photograph of the Needle from this point of view has been published, and is an interesting one to study.