Originally Posted by
mdilthey
Most cheap tents I've seen use brittle fiberglass poles. When I was in Iceland, all the locals used this style of tent - I thought they were insane.
No, they were experts at properly staking and guying out their tent walls, and placing their tents in the hummocks of hills or near a sparse treeline for a windbreak. I never saw one collapse.
Did you use all the guylines? Did you orient the tent's sloped side into the wind? Did you have everything taut or was there flapping? I have seen ultralight tents from Big Agnes survive some serious wind. I was in one!
I didn't talk to the other campers since a lot of them packed up and left right after the storm, all I recall seeing was torn fabric, not sure if any broke poles were involved though there were tents that collapsed, nor did I go around to see if they had put their tents up properly so can't answer that point either.