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Warning: My tent stakes failed me on a windy night in Moab
Last October I camped at the Sand Flats Recreation Area near Moab, Utah, and the wind picked up around 2 AM like someone flipped a switch. My tent was a decent three-season model, but I had been using the cheap aluminum stakes that came with it, the ones that bend if you look at them sideways. The gusts were probably 40 mph, and the fly started flapping so loud it woke me up, then the whole tent shifted about six inches. I jumped out in my socks, grabbed a rock, and hammered the stakes deeper, but two of them twisted into useless shapes. I ended up using my backpack and a heavy cooler to hold down the corners for the rest of the night. Next morning I bought a set of heavy-duty stakes from the gear shop in town, and they have held up through three trips since. Has anyone else had a tent collapse from cheap stakes, or do you swap them out before you ever hit the trail?
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leer1211d ago
Who hasn't been woken up by their own tent trying to take off like a kite, right? I had a similar night in Big Bend where the wind bent my stakes into little metal pretzels, and I spent an hour shoving rocks into the corners like a lunatic. You're not alone in learning this the hard way, that's for sure. I guess the real test of a stake isn't the price tag, it's how it handles a 2 AM panic when you're half asleep and in your socks. Good call on the heavy-duty set, those cheap ones belong in the trash.
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