Learned the hard way that tent stakes matter more than the tent

Last spring I camped up near Big Bend and got hit with a wind gust around 2am. The tent held but two stakes pulled clean out of the dirt and the fly started flapping like a flag. I had those cheap aluminum ones that came with the tent. Spent the rest of the night holding the corner down by hand. Next trip I bought a set of 8 inch steel stakes for about 15 bucks and hammered them in at a 45 degree angle. Totally different experience. No movement during a storm that had to be 30 mph. The trick was the angle and the longer length, not just the material. Has anyone else found that upgrading stakes fixed more problems than buying a pricier tent?

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the_joel17d ago

Nah, cheap stakes work fine if you just hammer them deep enough!