A portaledge is a deployable hanging tent system designed for rock climbers who need to spend multiple days and nights on a climbing route suspended from a sheer rock face while big wall climbing. A fully assembled portaledge is a fabric-covered platform surrounded by a metal frame that hangs from a single anchor point via carabiners and has adjustable suspension straps. A separate cover—called a stormfly—covers the entire system to give protection in the event of bad weather. The first portaledges were created for climbing in Yosemite.
History
1950–1960 Rock climber Warren Harding slept on natural ledges during his first ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite in 1958.
1960–70 The multiple-day routes on El Capitan pushed climbers to invent structures for sleeping. They began securing traditional two-point hammocks to cliff walls. Warren Harding invented the first hammock suspended from a central point, which he called a B.A.T. (Basically Absurd Technology) Tent. Central suspension facilitates deployment, prevents the tipping that occurs with two-point hammocks, and has since been integrated into every significant big wall sleeping structure. Harding almost died during his 1968 attempt on Half Dome in Yosemite after being trapped in a three-day storm, where his B.A.T Tent was filled with freezing rain and snow. Single-point hammocks allowed little sleep because they offered no weather resistance and crushed climbers' shoulders.
1970–1980 During the early 1970s, climbers Billy Westbay and Bruce Hawkins created the first portaledges by re-appropriating steel and canvas cots stolen from park lodges in Yosemite. These were a vast improvement from single-point hammocks with regard to comfort, but they were not collapsible and weighed up to thirty kilograms (almost three times the weight of today's models). During this period climbers also used Submarine Ledges, made from U.S. Navy aluminum tube cots that had been purchased from army surplus stores. In 1972, the climber brothers Gregg and Jeff Lowe designed the LURP, a highly innovative portaledge prototype. The design's collapsible frame allowed the Lowes to climb without the bulk of a cot. Every significant portaledge since the LURP has had a collapsible frame. Another pioneering feature of this design was its nylon fly tent, which provided an enclosed shelter from the elements. Fly tents quickly became a standard element of portaledges. Jeff Lowe used the LURP on the first winter ascent of Yosemite's Half Dome. Although the prototype was never sold to others, the brothers included it in their catalogue of climbing products, which circulated widely among climbers. By the late 1970s, the term "portaledge", which combines the words "portable" and "ledge", had become the common name for the typology. The originator of the term remains unknown to this day. Mike Graham, a famous American climber, founded his climbing gear company Gramicci in 1977. Over the next five years Graham sold over five hundred of the first commercially available portaledges, called Cliff Dwellings, to climbers in California and Europe. Graham made his Cliff Dwellings using equipment that he carried in his truck, and would set up his shop in friend's garages and basements. Graham's frame tubes slotted into each other at their corners, which allowed the frame to collapse into the smallest bag possible. His minimal corner connections were an important innovation, but they also made the Cliff Dwelling vulnerable to structural failure under extreme forces of nature. For an expedition to Patagonia in 1979, Graham designed the Fortress, the first portaledge large enough for two people. This model was constructed with ballistic nylon, a fabric strong enough to deflect small pieces of falling ice and rock. During the same year Graham made, but never tested, a prototype of a Windshield: a tent, suspended below the Cliff Dwelling that would deflect upward winds away from the portaledge.
1980–1986 The first portaledges used in Yosemite were non-collapsible cots purloined from Housekeeping Camp, a Yosemite Valley campground that featured primitive metal framed bunks for the campers. These heavy cots were used on multi-day climbs on granite monoliths like El Capitan, and then sometimes tossed off the summit for later retrieval. Mike Graham is credited with the first collapsible portaledge models available for retail purchase under the name of his company, Gramicci Products based in Ventura, California. The Gramicci Portaledge appeared in the very early 1980s and revolutionized multi-day big wall comfort. There were a few minor manufacturers that also dabbled in portaledge design in the early 1980s but could not get any traction in this niche market and soon faded from sight. In 1985 a small California-based company called Fish Products, founded by Russ Walling, started to manufacture one-person single portaledges. Other early Portaledge manufacturers were Fig, Frog (Ray Olsen), Lowe (never commercially available), and C&S Engineering.
1986–1998 In 1986, John Middendorf, a Stanford-trained mechanical engineer, founded A5 Adventures. Previously, Middendorf and his companions Steve Bosque and Mike Corbett had nearly died due to portaledge failure during a three-day storm on the 2000-foot south face of Half Dome, prompting Middendorf to redesign the modern portaledge. A5 portaledges were constructed of highly weatherproof fabrics and engineered to be structurally stable and strong. The company produced three models: the Single, the Alpine Double, and the Cliff Cabana. The A5 portaledges were the first that could withstand the severe weather conditions in remote areas such as the Himalayas and the Karakoram, enabling climbers to expand their horizons to the largest rock faces in the world. Middendorf himself used A5 portaledges on some of the hardest and remote big walls of the world, including during the first ascent of The Grand Voyage on the Great Trango Tower in 1992, the longest vertical big wall (1350m) in the world. The A5 Portaledge was sold worldwide.
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