The built-in stake loops on most tents aren’t wide enough for snow stakes (which you need when you’re on snow or sand) and they certainly aren’t wide enough for rocks which are often all you’ve got when you’re above the treeline.
After a handful of nights on rock, snow, and sand I think I’ve perfected a system which allows you to anchor your tent to rocks or snow stakes so that you can pitch it just about anywhere.
Ingredients
For each stake loop on your tent you’ll need:
- A mini carabiner (Litesmith or Zpacks)
- A LiteOutdoors tensioner
- 9″ of cord
- 36″ of cord
Measured weight: 7.5 grams per stake loop
For a 6-stake tent such as the Lunar Solo this adds up to 45 grams while for a 4-stake tent it’s only 30 grams. Six of these attachments easily fit into a snack-sized zipper bag.
Assembly
The smaller cord is run through the long hole in the back of the tensioner and then tied into a loop via a figure 8 knot. This loop is then attached to the carabiner.
The larger cord gets a bowline knot tied into the end with the loop of the bowline around the cord itself. This allows the smaller bowline loop to slide up and down the cord, forming a larger loop from the main cord as it does so. This larger loop can then be placed around and cinched down on objects (rocks and stakes) of a wide range of sizes. The other end of the long cord goes through the tensioner. This end gets two overhand knots, one at the end to provide something to grab onto and another an inch or so up to prevent the end knot from getting pulled all the way up against the tensioner such that it’s difficult to grab.
Directions
- Clip the carabiner into the built-in stake loop
- Slide the bowline loop up the cord until you can fit the loop in the cord around your chosen anchor
- Place cord around anchor
- Cinch down by sliding the bowling loop up against the anchor
- Pull the other end of the cord through the tensioner to adjust distance and tension
The benefit is the simplicity, no knots need to be tied or adjusted and getting the system on or off a tent is just a matter of clipping or unclipping a carabiner. The downside of a loop-based system is that you can’t tie it off to trees or branches since you have no way to get the loop around them. However, in places where there are trees there is often adequate soil so this has been a non-issue in practice.
Real-World Examples
I’ve also successfully used this system in the snow with the X-Mid 1P but unfortunately did not take a photo of it.