Suggestions needed: Tent stakes in winter

[Mike]

Winter camping for me in Wisconsin means camping in freezing temperatures that can easily dive below zero F. To date, most of my winter camping is done in free-standing nylon tents or snow caves or snow trenches.

This year, I want to bring a group of folks winter camping and cross-country skiing. We will car-camp at some of the state forests here that actually plow some of the sites for winter camping. My idea is to use big old canvas tents that are warmer than nylon and maybe have some catalytic heaters inside the tents to take some of the bite off of the cold.

My questions is: does anybody have any suggestions about using tent stakes in winter? I know about using stake alternatives like filled bags, logs, etcetera, but we will be in big canvas tents and I think that stakes will work a lot better.

My guess is that driving stakes in the frozen ground is going to be the first challenge and then pulling them out will be the second challenge. Does anybody have any suggestions, ideas, experience?

[familycamper]

Re: Suggestions needed: Tent stakes in winter

I went on a little excursion in Alaska. They used a combination of large 12" nails from a hardware store and rebar with washers welded on top for softer ground. Not wure if it helps or not, but this is what they used. Oh...and to pull the rebar, they used a skeleton jack and a chain off of one of the trucks.

[Nickadeamus]

Re: Suggestions needed: Tent stakes in winter

I don’t get deep snow here so I can’t say too much about it. But I clear all the snow away before I put up my tent. Then I use long steel stakes that have a point on the bottom of them and force them into the ground. When I take them out I hit them on the sides smacking them back and forth until they get lose and then pull out with my homemade puller. But I have seen people take logs and tie the rope to them and put mounds of snow on top of the logs packing it down as they go or tied off to trees.