Watched my tent fly away at 2 AM during a thunderstorm in New Mexico

I was camping near Taos last July and thought I had it staked down good... wrong. A gust picked up my whole tent at 2 in the morning and it sailed maybe 50 feet into a creek. I ran out in my boxers chasing it, got soaked, and had to patch a tear with duct tape from my truck. The next day I bought tent stakes that screw into the ground like augers, cost me like $12 at a hardware store. Has anyone else had a tent take off on them like that? What did you do about it?

3 comments

3 Comments

owens.anthony23d ago

Yeah, those screw stakes are a lifesaver. I swapped to them after my tent went flying into a wash in Arizona, now I hammer them in at a 45 degree angle and they don't budge. If you're on really loose sand or gravel, bury the bottom of the tent with rocks too.

wendy82018d ago

@owens.anthony I wish I'd known the rock trick before I tried that 45 degree thing and hit my own foot instead.

kaigibson23d ago

Failed the 45 degree thing the first time I tried it and hammered one straight down instead lol. Dug it out for like 20 minutes cussing at myself while my buddy just laughed. Rock trick is solid though, I did that on a beach trip last summer after a storm blew my cheap stakes into the ocean. Now I carry a little bag of pea gravel just to weigh down the corners if the ground is too loose.