I realized my tent stakes were wrong after a windy night on the coast

Last weekend I camped at Big Sur and the wind picked up around midnight. My tent was flopping all over the place until a guy from the next site came over to help. He pointed out I was using those cheap thin stakes instead of the wider ones that hold better in sand. I always thought any stake worked the same but now I'm looking for a set of V-style stakes that actually grip. Has anyone else had a tent fail because of weak stakes in loose ground?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy_craig281mo ago

Oof, patricia262 nailed it with "kept hammering those skinny stakes deeper but they just pulled right out." That's exactly what happened to me on a trip last year. I actually read somewhere that the angle you drive them in matters almost as much as the stake type, like you want them at a 45 degree angle away from the tent. But yeah, those cheap thin stakes are basically useless in sand or loose dirt, no matter how you angle them. I switched to those big V-style ones too and it's night and day, they actually grab and hold.

patricia2621mo ago

Learned that lesson myself after a similar night at Pismo Beach... kept hammering those skinny stakes deeper but they just pulled right out. Switched to the wide V-style ones and now I won't camp on sand without them. Made a huge difference the next trip out.

aaron7401mo ago

Did you try angling the stakes away from the tent at 45 degrees, @amy_craig28? That trick saved my gear on a windy trip where the cheap stakes just kept sliding out of the loose dirt. I switched to the V-style ones after that and they grabbed way better, no more middle-of-the-night fixes.