Guide to Staking Out Tents on Rocky Ground

Some of the best campsites on the Great Lakes, the oceans, or canoe country are on rocks. With the right inflatable sleeping pad (I love my Nemo Tensor), rocks slabs are comfortable places to camp, but staking out tents on rocky ground is a challenge. I’ve camped in all these rocky locations except for one.

As a hint for which one I didn’t camp at, you can check to corners of my tents. At real campsites, the corners of my freestanding tents are “staked” to the ground using cord and piles of rocks. Even when a tent is freestanding, it should be staked out, because if it isn’t, a strong wind can take it and all the camping gear inside away from you and on a wild ride into a nearby body of water. To stake out tents on rocky ground, you’re first going to need to do prep work at home and gather rocks at the site.

Prep Work for Tents

The prep work for camping on rocky slabs is easy. You just tie rope to the corners of the tent. I do it with specific cord in a specific way.

If I expect that I’m going to camp on a rock slab or even a rocky area with soil that’s hard to drive stakes into, I’ll tie 3-foot lengths of Kelty Triptease Lightline to each stakeout point on my tent. While there are lighter cords available, the durability, price, lightweight, and hand make the Triptease Lightline the best option in my opinion. I’m not sure if it is discontinued, but it’s getting harder to find. Lawson’s Reflective Glowire would be my second choice.

I use bowline knots to tie the rope to the stakeout points and any ventilation stake outs on the fly. A bowline is easy to untie even after it has been weighed and tightened. There may be unique situations in the field when you might want to untie from one point and add to another and a bowline makes it easier.

Staking Your Tent to Rocky Ground

When arriving at a campsite, I’ll first gather up enough rocks for the corners of the tent. Then I’ll stake the tent to the rocks. To do that, I first tie a loop or slip knot into the end of the cord and loop it around a stake. Then I wrap the cord around a big rock with the stake ending up under the rock and perpendicular to the the cordage. Then I’ll pile a bunch of rocks on top of and around the original rock. The addition of the stake helps anchor the line to the rock.

After I have the corners staked, I’ll setup the tent by putting in the poles and adding the rainfly. Then I’ll use rocks to stake out the guy out points and any of the edges that have stakeouts for ventilation. I find that on rocky slabs, I want to stake out as many of the corners guy out points and ventilation loops as I can.

Conclusion

I never know how much of myself to put into an instructional article like this, but there are a bunch of lightweight tents on the market that are semi-freestanding (my favorite is the Tiger Wall UL2), and I’ve seen people online recommend against them because they require staking. Most of the semi-freestanding tents are lighter than fully freestanding tents and just as roomy if not more, so they are a good option. Don’t be deterred by advice from people who say that they don’t work unless you stake them out. You have options with cordage to make them work regardless of the soil or on a rock slab.

In my opinion, you should always stake out your tent. It just requires a little prep work. That prep work is simple. Tie 3-foot pieces of cord to the corners and call it good.

At any rate, this should be done on all types of tents if you expect rocky ground or rock slabs.