What type of tent stakes for the Canyonlands?

[Michael M]

I’m a hammocker…but heading to MOAB and will be camping in Canyonlands for a week. I purchased a semi-free standing tent. What are best stakes to use for the area? Planning to buy from Vargo. Thanks for your help!

https://www.vargooutdoors.com/titanium-tent-stakes.html

[Link .]

. TENT STAKE HOLDING POWER: COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF VARIOUS DESIGNS AND LENGTHS .

. DITCH YOUR STAKES: A GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE SHELTER ANCHORS .

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^

If you are camping in slick rock:  To keep the rocks from damaging your shelter add about 4′ of line to each stake loop and to each tie-out. Tie the lengthen lines to a flat-ish rock and pile others on top.  Line-locks at the tent end help with tensioning.

[David Thomas]

That Mike Clelland article (Link’s second link) covered almost all the tricks I was going to mention.

Bring a lot of light line.  I use 130-pound-test dacron fishing line because it’s plenty strong enough, very light, and, oh yeah, I have a 5,000-foot spool of it (because halibut).  Then distant boulders and shrubs become options.

Jamming pebbles in cracks in the rocks can create very solid anchors.

[Rachel P]

I’ve camped in the Moab area a few times with my Tarptent. My memory is that I had to use a lot of rocks to stake out the tent because there were spots where I couldn’t use a stake at all due to solid rock. If it was loose sand then I would use deadman anchors…and rocks.

Also a footprint is good to use on this sort of trip– I forgot to use a footprint on a trip in the high desert here in New Mexico and got a ton of holes in my brand new Tarptent because of the rough ground surface and wind.

[Ralph Burgess]

I’m mystified by people trying to tie lines directly to rocks.    Put a stick through the loop in the guy line, lay the stick flat on the ground, put rocks on the stick.

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^

I’ve had lines attached to sticks and to stakes get yanked out from under carefully stacked rock piles.  Just once.  But it was a lesson learned.

 

 

[Ralph Burgess]

Or perhaps the lesson was that the stick was too small.   I tie large loops at the end of my guylines to accommodate large sticks.   I don’t know what happened with your setup, but I’ve never had a failure with this method.   If conditions are extremely windy, you can make this kind of anchor as secure as you need, with large enough sticks and rocks.    Far more secure than stakes stuck in the ground in the regular way.    And I think this method is easier than trying to find rocks with a suitable atypical non-rounded shape to tie off directly without the risk of the cord slipping off.

[Joel B]

I went to the maze last year and a non freestanding tent would have been a waste of time and weight, no peg works on rock, maybe a piton? The one night in six we got rained on we had no problem finding shelter under overhanging rock. Rain in the desert is exciting and fun, don’t miss it being walled in a tent.

[Roger Caffin]

Sheet rock is not a problem.

This was an incredibly convenient flat rock halfway down a precipitous rock-filled gully, which we only found at the last minute as the sun was setting. (Windy Creek, Kosci NP)
I have a solid stick (green line) across the end, with the two bungee cord anchors hooked around it. I have some rocks (red pointers) holding the stick down.

If you don’t have any sticks, just use rocks. More of them.

The rock, incidentally, was quite smooth. Cleaved grano-diorite I think.

Cheers

[obx hiker]

I don’t know if Clelland mentions this one; probably, but anyway….. Net plastic produce bags. The king for ex that Clementines come in. nearly weightless, tough, no water absorption etc. Place large rock in bag and attach to stake ties out. Easy to adjust too. In all my camping in that region I’ve found a rich array of strong dry sticks but just in case you find an irresistible slickrock spot the bags work great and 8/9 weigh less than an ounce.

[Paul Magnanti]

Cowboy camp. :)

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