Three Ways to Anchor Your Tent
Having a small selection of extra or replacement stakes will help you keep your shelter rigid and secure.
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Most tents come with a set of stakes. But they are easily lost, bent, or fouled in some way that makes owning a few replacements a good idea. However, not all stakes are equally suited to the same scenarios. A backpacking stake isn’t going to do much to keep that canvas canopy from blowing away at the family picnic, just like a steel tent “nail” isn’t the best choice for a one-man bivy in the backcountry. The following stakes are affordable and versatile enough to cover a wide range of camping and shelter scenarios.
Eurmax
Round aluminum stakes are a good choice for multi-purpose stakes. They offer most of the strength of a solid tent stake or nail at a fraction of the weight.
Eurmax
There’s nothing more frustrating when setting up camp than driving a tent stake only to have it bend under the blow a hatchet butt or rock. While not a good choice for backcountry travel, a solid steel tent nail will handle anything you can throw at it while car camping or setting up large canopies, tarps, and other shelters that need a solid ground anchor.
MSR
For the best strength-to-weight ratio, a flat-cut or angled aluminum stake will hold down the fort in just about any terrain except snow and sand. The Y-bar construction resists bending and helps maintain gription in the earth, gravel, and soil when most tents are pitched.
