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13 | (continued) Don’t forget that a tent doesn’t have to be staked down immediately around its perimeter if it’s designed properly. Ideally, the fly, the outer covering of the tent, should tie to the edges of the ground sheet, which means that the ground sheet should have straps that reach well beyond the edge of the tent’s sleeping chamber (inner envelope). Each of the tie-points can then be held by a ground line of any length. This lets you put your anchors or stakes (or tied lines) as far from the tent as necessary: around trees, or in the snow at the edge of the pond. I’ve used both methods, and they work fine—just remember where the lines or straps are connected to the tent, in case it snows during the night and they get hidden from view. In the morning, you should be able to lift them up without much difficulty, but be careful of putting too much strain on the fabric of the fly—it isn’t designed for heavy pulls. Get a basic handbook on knots and get into the habit of tying a bowline on the anchors, so your knots will be relatively easy to release in the morning. Granted, any knot can freeze over, but a bowline—pronounced BO-lun—is inherently easier to untie than most other knots—polypropylene line is also recommended for a similar reason: it absorbs less water than any other type of rope I know of. Aircraft aluminum tent-stakes are available now, in T-bar extrusions, both narrow and wide, with pre-drilled holes. I assume that they won’t shatter above –20° F. These should be ideal for driving into hard snow, but never, dear friends, into frozen soil or solid ice, without a pre-drilled hole. Carpenters call this “counterboring”. I don’t use plastic stakes any more, and have only once used wood, in an emergency, but of course both of them work reasonably well in a pinch. My advice to the learner is always to foresee pinches, and avoid them whenever possible. |
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