Got told my tent stakes were way too light for actual camping

So a guy at the REI parking lot in Denver called me out for using those cheap aluminum skewer stakes on a rocky site. He said they just bend and pop out if the wind picks up. I kinda shrugged it off at first but then a storm hit on day two of a trip near Estes Park and two of my stakes bent like pretzels. I swapped to those heavy duty MSR Groundhog stakes after that. They cost like $3 each but honestly they dig in so much better and hold tight even in loose dirt. Now I also carry a little mallet because driving them in by hand on hard ground was a pain. Has anyone else had a tent fail because of bad stakes?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas_sanchez1mo ago

Did you have trouble getting the stakes out too? I always end up wrestling with mine after a storm and almost rip the tent floor.

jakeb811mo ago

Yeah, I used to think any stake would do but that storm changed my mind pretty fast.

sean_green441mo ago

Wait, you actually had trouble getting them out? Like they got stuck in the ground so bad you had to fight them? I pulled up my stakes after a bad storm once and half of them were bent into these weird L shapes, not even joking. Had to use a hammer just to straighten them out enough to get them back in the bag. The ground was like concrete after all that rain. If you're not using the heavy duty ones with the big heads, they just twist and get all messed up. I literally had to cut one of mine out with a knife cause the hook got caught on the tent loop. Never again.