What are favorite lightweight stakes for tarps when it's windy? (If there is already a thread on this, please direct me to it.) Do people mix up the type of stakes they use? Or do they pretty much use all the same type?
I have a bigger tarp now and want to make sure I can anchor the thing in a bad storm when backpacking in WV, PA, MD.
Thanks!
I like the MSR Groundhogs with a Figure 9 on the end of the cord. Works good for fast tie down and anchors like nobody's business, but that's just my opinion.Originally Posted by HappyCamper
Yea, MSR Groundhogs. I use figure 9s also, but mine is on "backwards" that is the 9s are tied to the tarp, the cord to the stake. Same effect, different approach. My stakes have withstood 50 mph gusts witout pulling out of very soft very rainsoaked topsoil in my back yard. I use 2 per side, & have the option of tieing the middle of each side to a handy dandy rock or stick or ???? "Just in case".
When you have a backpack on, no matter where you are, you’re home.
PAIN is INEVITABLE. MISERY is OPTIONAL.
I use the Sierra Designs "V" stakes which are the same thing as the MSR Groundhogs.
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." -Terry Pratchett
Just another face in the crowd using MSR ground hogs
"nickels and dimes, yours and mine, did you cash in on your dreams? You don't dream for me no" Third Eye Blind
Interesting - I Googled the stakes and found several places for them. Most sell the 8 stake kit. REI sells them individually. It is actually cheaper by a few dollars to buy 8 individual stakes from REI than the 8 stake kits elsewhere.
Seldom see that happen.
I originally had 6 of them for my old ENO DryFly tarp and bought them individually like that at REI. When I recently got a new tarp with 8 tie outs, I had to get 2 more, but no REI locally. I did a little looking and it turns out that the local Sportsman's Warehouse has them individually as well. $1.95 a pop, if I remember correctly.
I got my golite Y stakes from campmor. Can't complain. I only had them pull out a few times. More from the soil conditions than anything else. I try to tie to any log or tree around out of lazyness when it lines up.
Is that too much to ask? Girls with frikkin' lasers on their heads?
The hanger formly known as "hammock engineer".
Four MSR groundhogs plus four titanium needle stakes. Can't always use the MSR stakes in the Ouachitas with its rocky ground, but sometimes when down near a creek the needle stakes won't hold in the softer ground. Plus more stakes = more options with my new big JRB tarp.
But a lot of times I just tie to rocks I find laying around. Tie to a smaller rock and set a larger one on top of the line against the smaller rock, push the combo away from the tarp until you achieve the appropriate tension.
In your softer soil where they continually pull out try making a T trench the size of your stake then tying your guy line around the center of your stake and laying it in the trench and then tighten your guy. This works really good in soft soil and Snow and adds versatility to your V and Y stakes.
Oh Yeah! Go Ground Hogs!
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