Greetings all,

First post here, I am glad I found this site. I have traditionally been a car camper and just recently have planned out a couple of backpacking trips where I will be doing multi day hikes with some expected bad conditions.

I have never really used guy lines and I just recently bought a tent(Black Diamond Mesa 2 person). Very easy to setup but they gave me a rope that was 50 feet which I am assuming are the guy lines? Do I cut this rope for each loop? I am a little confused on this. I understand the concept of how they perform but I am not sure of how to go about this; they only came with the rope, no clips or anything like that. Thanks and I look forward to looking through this site and finding all kinds of great info!

What diameter is this "rope"? On most lightweight tents, guy lines can be quite small, around 2mm or so. I often use braided nylon mason's line (braided, not laid). I usually have assorted lengths.

Get hold of a standard knot reference, and check out "taut line hitch" and "trucker's hitch," as well as some of the standard fastening knots, like bowline. Clips are convenient, but do add weight.

Fussing around with guy lines is a good thing to do in the back yard on a pleasant summer's evening, well in advance of the inevitable dark and stormy night.

And, BTW, in the interests of being politically correct, the proper term of reference should be "person lines," not "guy lines."

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, they are very small ropes but nothing in the setup book or anything online says anything about them. I am familiar with taut line hitch knot but I guess I am wondering why they would just give me 1 very long piece of rope.

So you can make them the length you want instead of the length they would give you?

Oldranger is right: the "trucker's hitch" may be the single most useful knot to know. Your lines will stay tighter and weigh less than with those fancy clips I see everyone using.

Thanks for the help! Taut line hitch and bowline I am able to do fairly easy(after some practice) but truckers hitch is a whole new ballgame to me, haha.