Best lightweight tent stakes for wide 3 season use

Well … having made and tested most varieties, I find these days I carry 4 tubular stakes (aka Easton, but of course I make my own), and about 10 of the Lazr Ti wire stakes.

Curiously, apart from snow and sand, I have yet to find a site that doesn't work with the Ti wires. OK, in a few where the soil was 2" deep I added a couple of rocks.

Cheers

Hi Roger, thanks again – have benefited much from your advice. What would be an example of a commercially available light but strong tubular stake you'd recommend? would you consider the Y/V/X style stakes to be examples? Any brand/model you can suggest?

hey EJ, Roger is referring to Easton 6" (blue) or Easton 8" (yellow) tubular stakes. You can get them just about anywhere. Didn't you get some with your Scarp 2?

Hi Ashley, LOL, I wasn't kidding when I said I won't be able to play with the tent for about 10-14 days. Exercising crazy self control. I'll allow myself to peek at the stakes. My other stakes are aluminum Y stakes and thin skewer stakes (I think steel).

Which length do you carry?

There is an article here (BPL archive) on tent stake holding strength. Longer Ti wire stakes 7" hold well for less wt than tubular designs. Just my 2 cents.

Some of the Easton arrows I recently acquired to make some pegs with.

> Roger is referring to Easton 6" (blue) or Easton 8" (yellow) tubular stakes.

Correct. I make my tubular stakes 8" long, maybe a fraction more. (6" is pretty useless imho: you might as well go for the extra 2+".) I use them where possible at the two ends of my tunnel tent. When they go in, nothing is going to move that tent!

See http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_Pegs.htm#Pegs for more.

Cheers

8" Easton tubular stakes; they hold great, don't hurt your hand pushing them in, and are quite light. The tent stake holding power article gives a good breakdown; my recollection is that the longer tubulars had the highest holding power overall, MSR Groundhog Ys virtually the same. I concur w/Roger; haven't found the 6" tubulars to be all that great, but they hold at least as well as Ti skewers if not better.