I always carry stakes, but on occasion I just use sticks and have one less thing to pack up. The small things in life.
Me when I start taking the tarp down the next morning...
I always carry stakes, but on occasion I just use sticks and have one less thing to pack up. The small things in life.
Me when I start taking the tarp down the next morning...
I used sticks recently when I realized setting up that my stake bag was still at the last campsite...oops. But the ground was soft and the sticks worked fine.
Last week was moving stands and setting up deer camp. Old red clay farmland. I was actually pounding my MSR's in with a short piece of 2x4.
I can highly recommend these stakes
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Set up my new to me Amok hammock last Friday in my back yard and, even though Jonas clearly says put your stakes in your pocket when you remove them in his instructional videos, I didn't for one. Took me four sweeps to find that bright blue sucker. Would have been faster to whittle stakes from the maple I was hanging under.
Oh yeah, I bought a new set of MSR Mini Groundhogs for the next trip. Can't completely abandon them. (Hope the person who found my first set is appreciating them.)
As usual, it's location-location-location.
Around here, you're most likely going to have a hard time pounding sticks into the ground because of the rocks. So I use the Lawson Ti "HD" shepherd hooks that fit into smaller cracks and can be driven in if one has the right touch... start off tapping and gradually work up to whacking, but not really POUNDING. If you hit solid rock, nothing short of a jackhammer is going in anyway. Gotta feel around and find the cracks.
Many times those same rocks can be used as stakes so if you forget them there are options.
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Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter (not me... the great Cam Honan of OZ)
“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” ~ Gen. George S Patton
A couple of years ago I had a couple Scouts (Scouts Canada) set off on a weekend long hike. Of the 3 hiking 1 forgot his tent pegs at home. She told me on the Sunday that she remember how I had shown the Troop how to carve tent pegs a few months previous. She was able to make herself some pegs that she kept after the hike as something to remember, that if you use your head and stay calm. You can find a solution for any problem. It was one of those moments when I realized that all the hard work teaching these kids survival skills paid off.
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