Hillary's experience with the Eureka Draw-Tite tents influenced Jim Whittaker aka James W. Whittaker and Barry C. Bishop, two of nineteen American explorers headed for the first all-American Everest Expedition in 1963, to turn to Eureka to design custom Draw-Tite tents. Working closely with Bishop's and Whittaker's instructions, such as installing heavy-duty brass hooks for attaching the tent to the frame and utilizing zipper-type vents to prevent condensation, Eureka improved on the Draw-Tite design to create a total of over 60 lightweight Mt. Everest Assault Tents for the expedition, many of which were tested at at Mount Rainier the year before. The tents were used in temperatures reaching -20˚ Fahrenheit and from 60 mph+ winds during the three-month trek to the summit. Norman G. Dyhrenfurth, the expedition's leader, stated that much of the expedition's success was due to our fine new equipment... [such as our] vastly improved tents, with outside frames, that can be set up in a high wind.