A portaledge is a deployable hanging tent

Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...

 system designed for rock climbers

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

 who spend multiple days and nights on a big wall climb. An assembled portaledge is a fabric-covered platform surrounded by a metal frame that hangs from a single point and has adjustable suspension straps. A separate cover, called a stormfly, covers the entire system in the event of bad weather.

The first portaledges used in Yosemite were non-collapsable 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 80's and revolutionized multi day big wall comfort. There were a few minor manufacturers that also dabbled in portaledge design in the early 80's but could not get any traction in this niche market and soon faded from sight.

In 1985, A5 Adventures was founded, headed up by Stanford

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

-trained mechanical engineer John Middendorf

John Middendorf

John Middendorf is a big wall climber and inventor of climbing equipment.In the 1980s, he climbed the hardest walls of Yosemite , and in 1992 he climbed the largest rock wall in the world, Great Trango Tower- Great Trango new route :He achieved worldwide recognition in the climbing world in 1992...

 who was the chief designer and founder. A5 portaledges were constructed of highly weatherproof fabrics and engineered to be structurally stable and strong. The A5 portaledges were the first portaledges that could withstand the severe weather conditions in remote areas such as the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

, enabling climbers to expand their horizons to the largest rock faces in the world.