Where do you guys like to get your titanium stakes?

Thanks.

Lawson: www.Mountainfitter.com

Nails, Crooks, or Needles?

I don't know the pros and cons. Can you help?

I figure med/hard soil.

Edited by dpark on 05/06/2012 14:25:38 MDT.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/tent_stakes.html

Thanks for the link.

Seems like all shapes will very similar for my use. Crooks seem to be the most common. So to answer Craig, crooks would be fine.

Match both the style (crook, V, Y, nail, tubular) AND the length of your stake collection to the design of your shelter and the type of soil you will be encountering.

There is no "one style fits all".

Some shelters place really high stress loads on certain stakes while placing only minor loads on others. Major players need to be longer and of more robust design if you want them to hold when the weather turns to absolute crap.

FWIW, I always have at least one titanium nail stake in my bag. Rarely used as a stake, it does get used to make a pilot hole for other stakes in especially hard or rock-encrused soil. It was once pounded into a downed log to serve as an actual stake for a main guy line. I figured that if the wind got strong enough to move the log, I would be too busy trying to survive to care.