Portaledge

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.

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.

[1] 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).

His minimal corner connections were an important innovation, but they also made the Cliff Dwelling vulnerable to structural failure under extreme forces of nature.

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.

[citation needed] 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.

In 1985 a small California-based company called Fish Products, founded by Russ Walling, started to manufacture one-person single portaledges.

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.

Photos and open-source design notes available online:[3] See also: [4] Portaledges have been used by tree-sitters during anti-logging civil disobedience protests,[5] enabling them to remain aloft in trees for weeks, months, or sometimes years.