Easton stakes, bad experience

I've been experimenting with bad weather setups. When we get sleet or snow, especially with high winds, I set up my tarp in the backyard and camp out (my neighbors have gotten used to it I think). I've experiment with different pitches etc.

I recently bent some titanium stakes by pounding into frozen ground. I've also lost stakes when high winds rip them out of the ground.

So I recently bought some 8" Easton stakes. At first I thought they would work great because they were easy to pound in and the length allowed me to get a really secure hold. My report is that I don't like them.

Here's the problem. When I pulled the stakes out half of them lost their tops. The stakes themselves are still under the ground. Grr.

What do you guys like to use in the winter?

You might try SMC winter stakes. They're the kind that have holes in them. I think they weigh like 0.9 oz each. Rei sells them. You can pound them in like a regular stake, or dig a trench for them in the snow and lay them in and then re-bury and pack down the snow over them so that they freeze in place.

Earlylite
http://sectionhiker.com

Those look pretty interesting. But around here the snow is usually only 4 to 6 inches deep (and that's only around for a week or two each year). So I pretty much always clear the snow (if any) and pound the stake into the ground. My problem is more with frozen ground. Of course those SMC stakes do look pretty strong so they might be what the doctor ordered from that perspective.

I've been thinking about those Lazr Hi-Vis titanium nail tent stakes from BPL. They look like they might be strong and the fact that the guy line goes thru a hold in the stake rather than just under a shepherds crook (like my current titanium stakes) makes them harder to lose if the wind does pull them out.

Not many commercial tent stakes designed to be hammered into frozen ground. You can always buy those giant gutter nails at the hardware store though.

Actually the hammering in part worked great. Those Easton poles are surprisingly strong in that direction. The problem is that they are surprisingly weak in the other direction. When I pulled up the cap just came off.

Your idea about gutter stakes is a good one. I might have to try that.

I’ve also had the tops pop off the Easton stakes. Bummer.



“You can always buy those giant gutter nails…”

I’ve had good luck with these too. Too keep the rope from slipping off the small head, I added washers; not any old washers as these are heavy. I made some aluminum washers. Regular washers are just flat out heavy. Nail = 0.5oz, washer = 0.1oz.

I’m surprised I haven’t bent these things for what I have put them through.

On some ground, where the soil is only 2” before it hits rock, I just tie the rope to sticks and then just set a big ole rock on top of the stick. Or if I’m camping by a fallen tree, I tie the rope to its sturdy branch and then move the tree to get decent tension.

-Barry

Gutter nails seem to be very popular over at the WHITEBLAZE forum. And if you lose one... you will not cry like you do when you lose a Ti stake.

I use these but with this caveat: I don't encounter ground that is frozen solid in my winter playgrounds. It's usually just consolidated snow and at worst some "Sierra Concrete" late in the season. I have used Eastons in the snow but there's not much friction to keep them in place when the wind kicks up, at least not until they freeze up at night.

I have some very old (about twenty of them) aluminum stakes that are very light and sort of thick. Years ago (when the tops came off) when I got home I heated the top end and bent it so that it had a hook on the end of it at the top.. The self made hook is thick enough and strong enough that I can still use the "hooked end" to pound them into the ground. Then I have a strap that I carry on my pack with a carabiner on the end. When I get ready to pull up stakes, I just hook the strap (actually the carabiner) through the hook in the peg and a good stout pull will get them out every time. I think they were originally about 10" long, but now with the said hook, they are probably around 8" long and for me that is plenty long enough...sabre11004...

The first step that you take will be one of those that get you there !!!!

At a thirty pound absolute weight limit, that may be all I can carry HeHeHe !!!!!sabre11004...

The first step that you take will be one of those that get you there !!!!!

I had gotten some of those from REI but they didn't last very long. They could not take the pounding and were all pretty bent up when I got rid of them. I had straightened them many many times...sabre11004...

The first step that you take will be one of those that get you there !!!!!

I have a 6 - 8" loop of 1/16" shock cord at all stake tie outs - ready for a 'deadman' when required. A rock or log on top to secure it seems to work most of the time.

As another dedicated backyard tinkerer, over the years I have purchased just about every type you can think of. Like the rest I have managed to pull the top off the 9" Easton but not the 6", although I have bent and broken some of each. The only stakes that I have not bent so far are the Y type, like the MSR Groundhog . Much stronger IMHO than the V type .
You can pound the Y in with a rock and, with a light kick to loosen them, you should be able to pull them out using the attached cord. I have cut myself several times pulling out the same Y type without the cord ( you would think that once was enough....) BTW, when it's cold it really hurts, just trust me on this one.
Franco

I'm with rick on this one - I have sno-stakes for snow, and they're kinda nice, but really, if the ground is frozen hard I simply use deadmen for anchors. - a square of nylong with 4 straps sewn to the corner works great for this. either to bury in
the snow, or drop a rock or log on top of,

Pounding nails into ground is overkill. How do you set up
on rocks

Without knowing for sure, I think Easton uses the same glue for the stakes as for putting tips and knocks on their aluminum arrows. The glue fails in the cold. A solution would be to drill them and rivet or pin them if you otherwise like them AND tell Easton. This is probably the same glue they assemble tent poles with. The shock of pounding the stakes breaks the bond in cold weather probably.

I have also found that the MSR ground hogs have been the best tent stakes for all the conditions I have encountered. I have used the thin shepherds hooks, titanium nails, and plastic.

Also feeling the love for groundhogs.

Another one for the SMC Stakes.