Camp Aerial is a transforming Portaledge that is fast to set up, functional on both flat grounds and rock walls, and provides protection from fierce weather conditions.

Big Wall Climbs are an increasingly popular sport with more people attempting bigger challenges, and leading athletes and climbers to explore more daring routes. Some climbs take days, and more challenging walls like Trango Tower in Pakistan, can take take several weeks. This places climbers in great risk of dangerous weather conditions. Not just heavy rainfall or rock slides, but also intense winds that raise portaledges off of walls, and then crash back. Camp Aerial has specialized pegs that securely offset the tent a few inches off the wall so that strong winds that travel freely between the portaledge and the wall. Portaledges leaning into the wall can get air trapped between, allowing the air to grow, and then the air will force the portaledge to to lift off the wall in order to escape.

Many of these walls are also in very remote locations that require an extensive hike. However, many existing portaledges are not adequate for use on the ground because the cover is kept up by hanging. Camp Aerial has a center pole that keeps the cover up, even when it is on the ground.

Current portaledges in the market also often require a multi step process that require the skeletal structure of the portaledge to be connected together in order to set up the floor, and then an additional cover is placed on top afterwards. Camp Aerial's skeletal structure is connected by several locked hinges that allow all the poles to remain together, and also have the floor and the cover be set up at the same time.

Design Team

Designer: Jae-Hyun An

Professor: Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman

School: Pratt Institute

Major: Industrial Design

The link shows a prototype being folded from a set up portaledge to its wrapped up state. Please note that this is a prototype that uses substitute materials and so we could not actually attempt this safely on a rock surface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vONvcUvtTI

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