Ann Axtell Morris stood still, keenly aware that any motion could send her tumbling a hundred feet to the desert floor below. The young archaeologist’s climb into an ancient cliff dwelling had yielded a cache of Navajo objects. But Morris had underestimated how difficult it would be to get back down.

“I knew that nobody in camp had no idea where I was,” Morris wrote in a 1933 account. “Whatever was to be done I had to do myself.” Slowly, she inched her way down the cliff wall, jettisoning her shoes along the way and resolving to give up her daredevil ways once she made in down safely.

That resolution didn’t last: “I believe I kept [the promise] all of