The night my new ultralight tent decided to become a kite
I was testing a fancy new single-person tent on a ridge in the White Mountains last fall, a spot I've camped at a dozen times. The wind picked up around midnight, and I woke up because my face was getting wet. The whole tent was bending over me, the poles flexing like crazy, and then one corner just lifted off the ground. I had to scramble out in my boxers and sit on the tent flap with my whole pack on top of it for like an hour while the storm blew through. The tent itself was fine, but the stakes it came with were these tiny little things that just pulled right out of the soft ground. I ended up tying the guy lines to some big rocks. Has anyone else had a tent try to fly away, and what do you actually look for in good stakes for windy places?