bottom-rung

I leaped and caught the bottom rung of a fire escape, pulled myself up until I could get a foothold.

You must come and help me to fix it, Isabella, and stand on the bottom rung while I climb to the window.

James Gilray was born in 1757, and, like Hogarth, commenced at the bottom rung of the ladder as a letter engraver.

He braced for a run and a jump to reach the piece of root that was the bottom rung of a natural ladder to liberty.

Nearly everyone who wrote to congratulate me used the same image: "You have now set your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder."