Tent stakes best use

Those stakes look suspiciously like MSR Ground Hog tent stakes. I have lots of Ground Hogs and for general backpacking use they are the best.

Liz, you probably want to insert your stakes at an angle so the guyline is perpendicular to the long axis of the stake. Don’t insert your stakes straight into the ground.

but push the stake all the way in (the photo shows the angle)

The loops on the stakes are more for extraction.  Gives you something to grab.

I will often larks head the end of my guyline to the tent stake pull loop (thread the end of the guyline through the tent stake pull loop, then pull it down and put the pointy end of the stake through the loop at the end of my guyline). This is particularly useful with a stake like the Vargo titanium nail pegs without much of a head to prevent the guyline from slipping off. This also allows me to really bury a stake all the way down to even have the top of the stake flush with the ground, which helps with holding power in looser soil, and helps make sure I’m not losing stakes in heavy duff, fall leaves, or snow.

Unless I’m really burying a stake, I’ll still typically put the guyline around the stake instead of just relying on the loop (so it’s not really a tightened larks head). I also re-tie all the stake pull loops with a single/double fisherman’s knot or figure-8 instead of relying on the standard overhand knot they usually come with to make sure that pull loop is more secure.

Worth noting: a simple overhand knot WILL run on Spectra (ie, slide along the string), and can run on some other synthetics too. They are very unreliable.

Cheers

I have 3 types of MSR Ground Hog stakes:

1. original Ground Hog stakes (but the newer ones have curved ribs)

2. short Ground Hogs

3. Long and twisted Ground Hogs that are great in sandy & loamy soil.

Yeah, there are now a lot of knock-offs of the Ground Hog stakes as seen in the above photos but I buy MSR stakes B/C they are still the best quality.