On our recent car camping trip we encountered high winds. 15mph to 20mph with gusts up to 35mph. The ground was decomposed granite with soft spots, i.e. no rocks, although the ground squirrels didn't seem to have too much trouble. Anchoring our tents was little bit challenging to say the least.

We used four different types of tent stakes. Simple pins, plastic stakes, metal angle, and steel pins with a plastic collar. All had there share of successes and failures.

The simple pins that typically come with the tents performed the worst simply because they were short in length and easily bent with little or no holding power. Plastic stakes fared a little better but my concern is the plastic breaking at the most inopportune time either due to hitting a rock or just being too cold. The metal angle stakes we used bent because of the thin metal used as the stake itself either striking a rock or being pulled too hard because of the wind load. Steel pins with the plastic collar seemed to work the best. They were more difficult to bend but the plastic collar would break with one errant hit.

Questions to the ETS brain trust. What do you use in a similar situation? Has anyone found the ultimate tent stake?