Tent Stakes
 

My wife and I just finished our first short camping tour with a homemade tarp-tent. The camping all went fine... we were using some cheap aluminum stakes from our old dome tent, but the tarp requires more stakes and they need to be anchored more securely. The stakes we have bend easily and we had had trouble getting them in to the hard ground.

What kind of stakes do people recommend? And do you just push them into the ground by hand, pound them with a rock, or what?

We live in the northeast and mostly tour close to home, so we're dealing with hard-packed, rocky ground most of the time.

solid aluminum rod, J hook seem OK, bang them in
with the heel of your shoe, as a mallet.

if its really rocky, sew up some small bags with a cord attached,
fill the bags with rocks and soil, and tie the cord on where the stake loop is.

When I ws looking for tent stakes, I was recommended the MSR Groundhog. I've been using them on my last several outings and have no complaints.

The DAC V-stakes which came with my Hilleberg are really strong and tough, much better than the extruded aluminium no-name pegs from a reputable camping store. You can bash V-stakes with rocks, logs etc.

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R.E.I. has many varieties, of which the MSR ground hog is but one. It has postive reviews http://www.rei.com/zoom/682543Lrg.jpg/150

I have a set of those MSR stakes too - you can truly abuse them - no worries.

I'd like to see a picture of that home made tarp tent!

I used Kelty Nobendium stakes for years and never had any issues with them.

Aaron :)

I bought some Nobendium stakes from Campmor. They're strong, but a little heavier than the aluminum stakes that came with my tent. One tip: if you can't push your stakes in with the palm of your hand and have to pound them in with a rock, use lots of little hits, rather than big ones. If you tap, tap, tap the stake it won't bend, even if you hit a rock. Lots of times it will gradually move the rock or move itself around the rock and eventually go in. Occasionally I run into rocks that can't be gotten around. In that case I give up and move the stake. I change the angle, or move it a couple of inches, or both. Usually that will be enough. If that fails I'll move the tent a few inches to give the stake a new area to penetrate. This has always worked; I've never been defeated yet.

great choice. I actually carry a mix; a few groundhogs for high stress points, and a few lighter shepherd's hooks for lower tension guy-outs. Plus the thinner stake can be used to start a hole in rocky soil, reducing the need to really abuse the groundhogs.

10" Titanium(no bendy) wire stakes for everything but sand,bury plastic bags,rocks,sticks for soft sand.

I don't sleep in the sand dunes or right on the beach often.

MSR Groundhogs,I carry 4 just in case....

I too like the MSR ground hog, replaced the stakes that came with my Big Agnes tent with them. Usually I pound them in with a rock. The fact that it has a cord on the stake makes pulling them out of the ground easier.

There is no perfect stake. For campsites in:
- Beach sand, I use snow stakes. Prefer older SMC extra long ones with no holes, I have not seen them for sale for several years, the newer ones are shorter and have large holes.
- Soft to medium soil, the cheap short aluminum rod type of stakes that come with a new tent.
- Hard ground or semi-frozen ground, have used extra large steel nails/spikes but they are hard to remove when packing up so if I bring them on a trip I bring spares.
- Rock, where I camp on rock there usually is an inch of soil above the rock, put a big cobble on top of the stake where the stake goes through the loop, may need two stakes thru the loop. Have not found a good option yet for rock with no soil overlying it other than large cobbles and line.

A few decades ago, Gerry Sports make a U shaped stake of aluminum rod, no longer available so I bought some rod to make my own. It is about 9 inches long (+/- a few inches) and has two prongs that go into the ground like an upside down U with a radius of about an inch at the bend. I have a couple tents that have high tension on a few of the lines, I carry those homemade Gerry copies for those lines.

We use pole barn nails with the upper half coated with bright yellow dip tool grip vinyl - all from the local hardware. They hold well in the hard ground in new england, don,t warp all out of shape - be careful to not pound them into a submerged root.

The Y stakes, like MSR Groundhogs, seem to provide the best holding power. Found an online review of several stakes and holding power, but cannot find that review now.

Here is a copy of the Groundhog for 99 cents:

http://goinggear.com/index.php?main_...products_id=26

I use these and have found them to be excellent stakes. Two weigh just over an ounce.

Did you make a Jardine tarp? If you are camping in normal earth, you can get away with hand inserted wire stakes, just buy better ones. I like to add a few hook ones, they are about 3-4 inches long, and look like a coat hanger that had the hook cut out, then one of the ends was cut back to about on inch from the bend (of course that would make a giant version of what I am talking about, you need to reduce the size to 4 inches. They will hold where nothing else will, in solid ground. Be sure you are using a half hitch with a release to tie off short pegs so they don't end up getitng levered. There isn't much point in an ultralite tarp, but 10 pounds of pegs, you could just use a North Face Dome.

The problem is, if you are chanelling Jardine, he will find an anchor no mater what. He is possibly the world record holder for anchor finding. You climbers know why I say that. So when you see on old dude like that just sticking pegs in, it may look like he isn't doing anything, and I am sure that is true 99% of the time, but the guy is a legend for finding anchors where they don't exist, so at some level the problem won't always be the gear.

Keep in mind that the tent peg doesn't need to be in solid, it needs to be in strongly enough that the cord can't move off it. That is a whole other thing. A good peg can be pretty loose.