Terms you want to use, but may not work for the genre

The word would put me off, but I am not sure of the technology in general? Could it not be steep in one area but also have a more gradual descent a little further along?

Yeah, elevator sounds too advanced of a term. I'd use "lift" or "lift mechanism".

Or elevating device

Apparently in the middle ages rope elevators were called 'hoists'. So if your world is roughly at that tech level that might be a good word?

The lifting carriage.

the up platform

the sky climber

The pully-up

Tri

I also like hoist.

I vote for hoist as well.


The technology's no different, really, than the bucket in the well that I assume your townsfolk frequent.

Bucket's another good term, depending on what they stand in/on to go up and down.

Just an FYI, 'lift' is the British-English term for 'elevator'.

The big ones seem to have been animal driven. I would like to see one of them...

Hoist sounds good. Mechanical and archaic. Bucket makes me think of the thing the Line-men use to fix telephone wires.

Describe it.

What are they standing in/on? A simple pulley, or is it more advanced with a block and tackle? Operated by counterweights, or is there an attendant there working the ropes by hand or with animals? Lastly, given the description, what would they call it?

I think that if someone fell off this cliff, then there needs to be a bit of an explanation as to the ease (or difficulty) of the means to ascend/descend safely. If that falling was important, then by default the alternative is as well.

After a brief description of the contraption, you can simply call it "the cage" or anything else that sums up it's description.

Ok time to pull out my dork hat.

My copy of English Through the Ages and I are joined at the hip. It's like a huge, dictionary-sized index of (nearly) every word in the English language along with it's "in use by" date--the date of its first confirmed usage. Here's the link to Amazon if you want to read more about the book itself:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0898796555/sr=8-1/qid=1145496460/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-8709060-4779238?%5Fencoding=UTF8

I luuuurv this book. It's especially useful for answering questions like this one.

elevator - (as in a grain elevator, so not the same thing) was in use by 1800
lift - (as in elevator) was in use by 1870
elevator - (as we know it) in use by 1900
bucket - in use by 1250

Tragically, "hoist" is not in here but I'll put my vote with that one as well

Since I write fantasy (admittedly late medieval era/early renaissance fantasy), I try to limit myself to only using words in use by 1600--IMHO it seems to fit with the general feel. That doesn't mean I look up every word, but whenever I use something and am not sure how it sounds within the context, I check this book.

What the book won't do is point you toward a better replacement word, so you'll still have to ask other people for help there.

Dork hat back off now. And no...the pointy thing on my head is a helmet. HELM-ET. Ok, yeah it could be my dork hat.

There are various monasteries in (I think) Greece and Ethiopia that use such hoists as the main/only access route and have done so for many centuries, so this technology is entirely appropriate for a fantasy setting. You might have a donkey or oxen to do the hard work.

There's something like this used in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series at the Eyrie. I think it was referred to as a carriage, a basket, and a hoist; not positive on that, though.