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This tent was co-designed by me and Don. Very few examples exist because few were made, and very few have survived, having been left embedded on steep Himalayan faces they were designed for.
As the name implies, the box tent was the brainchild of Don Whillans, who had created a rough, wooden shed-like shelter from materials found around the local Patagonian farmstead. A structure built to withstand the ferocious winds of Patagonia (normal tents simply blew down) helped the successful first ascent of the Central Tower of Paine in the 60s. Don asked me at Karrimor if I would make him a rucksack canvas cover for the iron frame he supplied for his return visit to Patagonia. Weight was immaterial at this stage.
That could have then become an obscure innovation which solved a single purpose and was then forgotten. Instead, the design was completely reconfigured, and it became extremely visible and indeed famous, in pictures of Annapurna S Face in 1970 and Everest SW Face in 1975, plus several more expeditions, German, Japanese, and Korean.
Here is how it happened.
When Chris Bonington instigated the 1970 Annapurna expedition, he appointed Whillans as deputy leader and equipment officer. Don realised that a similar structure would be the answer to the problem of pitching a tent on steep snow slopes where spindrift and snow sloughing off or even stone fall would crush a normal tent. Don said the next version needed to be lighter, not exceeding a porter load. The textile I used for the sides was polyester/cotton, lighter and slightly absorbent on the inside. The top was much stronger, made from 840den coated nylon as I used on the Haston Alpiniste pack. I thought hard about the doorways at both ends and made one as a sleeve but knowing these were fussy to get in and out of, I fitted at the opposite end a ‘U’ shaped entrance with a very large toothed zip. I then set about developing a tubular frame structure using pack frame technology. The base was not a traditional waterproof basin groundsheet but a cord and eyelet structure to tension the whole textile around the frame. The whole tent base was then lined with 9mm yellow Karrimats.
Don gave a few other design inputs, and a near-final version was tested by 2 volunteers, during which the tent blew away into the next valley.
Later, Hamish MacInnes took over the design updating with several improvements. It doesn’t seem like a MacInnes version has survived.
The box tent era was short and geodesic tent design soon replaced them so we are delighted to have this excellent version here in the collection which was kindly donated by Audrey Salkeld.
