Took me 4 hours to figure out my tent stakes were the problem

I went camping up near Tahoe last month and spent almost half a day setting up camp in the dark. Kept thinking I was picking bad spots but my tent would just flop over every time the wind picked up. Turns out I had been using the wrong type of stakes for that sandy soil all along. The little skinny ones just slipped right out no matter how deep I pushed them. I finally swapped to some wider flat ones I had buried in my gear bag and everything stayed put in like 10 minutes. Has anyone else wasted way too long fighting with gear that just needed a simple swap?

3 comments

3 Comments

susanb344d ago

My buddy Tom had this happen to him out in the Mojave last spring. He spent like three hours banging those skinny stakes into the hard packed dirt, getting them all bent and useless. Then his girlfriend walked over, grabbed her big orange plastic stakes that look like giant nails, and had the whole tent up solid in fifteen minutes. He still brings it up like it's a great story, but we all know he was just fighting the wrong tool the whole time.

mia7004d ago

My buddy Dave tried using cheap steel stakes up in the Sierra Nevada last year and bent three of them into useless pretzels on the first try. His buddy pulled out these fat orange plastic ones that look like giant nails and had the whole flysheet locked down in under ten minutes like it was nothing. We still tease Dave about that trip, same as susanb34's story with Tom and his girlfriend. Did he ever admit he just had the wrong stakes or does he still blame the ground?

piper_kim4d ago

Skinny metal stakes are basically useless in hard ground, it's not even up for debate. The orange plastic ones are just better for most situations, especially when you're dealing with packed dirt or rocky soil. Tom and Dave both learned that lesson the hard way, but at least their girlfriends saved the day. It's funny how guys will fight a bad tool for hours before admitting they could just switch to something that actually works. Bent stakes tell a story, but not a very flattering one.