Upvote for disagree. Ropes are the best form of elevation. You can climb it, hoist things, make pulleys, or even make a ladder if you really want to. They are multipurpose tools adaptable to nearly any problem. What can you do with a ladder? You can climb it, or make a small(!) bridge with it. Well whoopdeedoo.

Can you carry a piano up a ladder? Of course not. But you can carry a piano up a rope. And what if you need to move the thing laterally as it is in the air? With a rope, you just push it and it swings where you want.

If you like to climb there's no better tool than a rope with a hook. It has further reach than a ladder and can be secure with only 1 point of contact. It can reach further than you can throw even, if you wrap it around one thing and thing 'fling' it to another thing. E.g. from one tree branch to another. [<- this is unfortunately just theory]

I was was lost in the apocalypse with just one item, it would be a rope.