How to start Backpacking- How To Set The Proper Backpacking Tent Stake Angle 

Interesting and helpful. The Indiana Dept. of Homeland Security published an appendix to a paper that concluded the 90-degree stake angle had superior holding power in the soil compared to a stake at 45 degrees, yet your video clearly disputes that conclusion. The paper included the physics statics as well. The optimal angle is like others have said: probably not 45 degrees and more like 15 to 25 degrees. The optimal angle is the one that works in the soil conditions at site. Thanks for the video!

Now that was interesting to see tested. Glad to know I've been doing it right.

I really can't believe that there is actually a discussion going on about 45 vs 90 degrees angles. It's basic physics of the power parallelogram. But I'm really glad you made this test brother, nothing better than showing how it really is! Great job! Cheers, Marc

the test is flawed, the angle the cord is pulling is way too steep, therefore is almost pulling directly up

There are a lot of factors that come into play on this. How firm the soil is (the circuits tents rely on going into the very hard earth below 10”), the angle of your line to the ground plays a part as well to reduce the “lifting” component. I would bet that for camping stakes somewhere between 15-25 deg is optimal for the stake angle.

The angle of the guy ropes is key to the holding power of the pegs.

Excellent, this was fun to watch and reinforced my experience. Thx...

Good Tip Bruce, this makes a big difference in bad or wind conditions. Thanks for sharing

Yeah…fun test. I’m putting mine in perpendicular to the guy line like I’ve done for half a century. Really interesting visual presentation, thanks!

I'm glad I found this video, if, for no other reason it illustrates a counter point to the tent stake study, and reflects MY concerns with the vertical component of the force from the line which wants to literally pull the stake up out of the ground. I'm in search for the original paper from the University of Illinois. An issue for me is that the "tent stake" study has now come into the rescue environment and the use of picket systems as anchors. In these cases, its not a tent that is relying on the anchor point, but rather human lives. What I like about this simple video is that the same technique, that of pulling on two different systems using the same soil and allowing the upper pulley to equalize the load on each stake, can be replicated for very large systems, only the test equipment would probably include a large tracked piece of heavy equipment! Thanks for making this video!!

Thx! Great work. I saw the circus tent peg test and was very surprised by the 90 degree conclusion. You rehabilitated my intuition! However, the best angle imho depends on where the line comes from. I always try to keep an angle just below 90 degrees for the peg and the direction the line pulls from. To secure a ground sheet to the floor an 85 degree angle might be fine. If I secure a tarp and the line comes down from above I may rather use a 45 degree angle. This also depends on the soil. If it gets too soft a lower angle of the stake in the ground means there's less soil on top of the peg. In that case forget about angles, put pegs back into the pack... and go searching for rocks. ;)

It's nice knowing there's other people out there who worry about all the little things that most people don't even think about. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one:) I think your test was fantastic! Simple, but effective.

So much for my hammering them in and hoping for best. lol Good info Bruce Thanks for the video

I knew I was doing it right!! Thank you for this demonstration.

lmao when you changed music while pulling the rope. Your the best.

Great video! I learn something today, thanks

Excellent film Professor Bruce.

Really like this series. I find myself nodding in agreement while watching. Solid info on things we just do without giving the WHY any consideration. The visual explanations are excellent bud. Keep on keeping on.-J&K

So glad to have found this video. I have seen the ones saying 90 degrees is better and gone back and forth with it. So glad to see the 45 degree that we had always used before is actually better for a tent. Thanks for sharing! (Arnie)

Thanks for the educational video lol.. my 12 people tent almost blew away today. So here I am. I j hooked all of them 90 degrees ☹

I always go 45 degrees. Seems the obvious choice. Although not everyone would know. So a worthwhile video. I've got some new pegs to review. Just can't get the breaks to do it. I need calm conditions for the initial intro. Then I'll get some rough stuff going. Once I've reviewed them I'll post a video. Hopefully I can get this done soon. They look good though. Anyway. Good test Bruce. A proper RU-vid tutorial. Atb

This is interesting but when I pitch my tent, my guy lines are never 45 degrees. The angles are much lower anywhere from 5 to 25 degrees. If I'm pitching a tarp, it could be around 45 degrees but never with a tent. I'd like to see how it would be with lower angles.

Great test!

Awesome video, thank you 🤗🤗

great tent peg demo Bruce 👍

Wish you could add Groundhogs to your peg mix- they are the #1 peg used these days.

Strange as it may sound, I've wondered about this. You've solved it for me. (-:

...I like the music you chose, it was more suspenseful than the outcome

Bruce, it also depends on what material you are pegging into. Sand and Snow pegs are often put at different angles than going into ground.

So, my Scout Master was right. Cool experiment, Bruce.

for max strength, tent pole needs to be 90% or more to the rope line

Don’t you think the angle is a function of stake length? I would think a very short tent stake would do better on an angle of 45, but at some point in length a 90 degrees would be better, if just for the added depth, soil hardness it finds? Kind of a moot point where I live, under very little top soil we have clay, clay you can make bricks out of. Williamsburg up the road does just that. I can tell you anything driven more then 12 inches str8 down in it is a bear to get out as that soil sucks it in. I have had to use a hydraulic jack to get them started back up in that clay.

The correct angle in the northern hemisphere is 31.5 degrees. In the southern hemisphere, just stand on your head when driving the stakes. Seriously, nice job.

That goes to show that large tent companies rely more on the compaction and rigidity of the soil then the dynamic of forces. In relatively soft soil you do need angle, better you would have better success with triangular or even flat pegs. Having more square inch pushing against the ground to hold the line. My 2cents. Good demo.

Of course, there are a number of variables to consider when choosing which type of tent peg to use when pitching your tent. I don't use just one type of peg for both the groundsheet and the flysheet, I use 2 different types of peg. For the groundsheet, you can quite easily get away with using the 'hooked' pegs that came with your tent. Just be careful how you drive them into the ground, and ensure that they go into the ground (at an angle) all the way. For extra security and stability, you can 'double up' and use 2 pegs for each eyelet of the ground sheet. The thing to consider is that the 'inner' tent is going to be protected from the only real variable that can affect it, the weather, by the flysheet, and thus, it is better to give greater thought to the type of peg you are going to use for the flysheet than for the groundsheet. The flysheet protects the inner from the dynamics of weather, wind, rain, snow, hail, etc, and receives the greater battering, so the flysheet needs to be able to withstand the weather and stay in position. I don't consider thin pegs (as used in the video) as suitable for using with the flysheet, you need to use a peg that has a wider body that is able to resist forces trying to pull it from the ground. Y-shaped pegs are ideal for this. Their flanged (or winged) body is able to push against a greater volume of soil than the thin pegs, especially when the angle they are driven into the ground at matches the angle of the guy line. Again, if you wanted to, you could add a hooked peg to help keep things in place. Just make sure that the tension on the guy lines is the same for each line.

Neat test Bruce! I usually try to put my tent stakes in as close to 45 degrees as I can. You might need to apply for a Quality Assurance team position for the circus tent maker. Looks like they need to use your test method. lol

I have seen the tests of longer (~2 ft) stakes being pulled on by a tow truck, and they found the exact opposite of what you did. In my mind, there are flaws with both Tests. All of the stakes in your test pulled out of the ground vertically, not necessarily meaning a failure of the stake or the ground holding it, but more of a mistake in the angle of pull. The angle of pull you put on the stake will affect when it is pulled from the ground. In your tests, especially the last test with the shepards hook steaks, your angle of pull looks much more parallel to the 90 degree stake, whereas in reality, most tent stakes are holding the corners of tent bodies or flies down, and the angle of pull is less than 30 degrees from the ground. If you do your test again and pull at an angle more realistic to the angle that most tents will be pulling, that would be interesting. Also, you can see in this article: backpackinglight.com/tent_stakes/ that the type of ground you are putting the stakes into makes a big difference in how well they hold. From what I know of physics, the length of the stake also makes a huge difference in how the friction and angle of pull work together to hold a stake in place. Of course a longer stake (8-9 inches, the longest available lightweight tent stakes) will always have better holding power, but a long stake may hold better when put in vertically rather than at an angle, depending on the angle of pull. The failure of the dirt around it will depend on soil moisture, rock, sand and clay content, and other factors. Most of us will not be camping on a nice lawn, if we are this interested in tent stake angles. At some point, a long stake acts like a lever, and puts greater pressure on the opposite side of the bottom of the stake from the angle of pull. Like a teeter-totter in the ground vertically, the point of rotation being somewhere in the middle of your stake hole. This will increase friction, and could account for the greater holding power of the larger, longer stakes. Many of us will also use guy lines, which will have a more vertical angle of pull on the stakes, which could make angling the stakes more appropriate. In all likelihood, there is no "one angle" that is best for staking; the angle of the stake should be adjusted to be close to perpendicular to the angle of pull. With tie-downs at the bottom corners of tents, this would result in a near-vertical tent stake.

Would it not be 90ﾟ to the angle of the line? So the corners of the tent would be 90 And the guy lines would be 45

I am not convinced as the 45° inclination of the guy is not common in tent pegging. Guy lines would probably meat the ground with 25° or less in normal practice. That means the upward vector is much smaller and the horizontal vector is much larger. If one puts the peg at 45° in the ground (as normally suggested), or at 90° to the guy line, the result is that the entire force is applied on the tip of the peg, for the little physics I know there is only one vector at play, which represents the entire force applied. If one places the peg perpendicular to the ground, the pulling force can be seen as divided among two different vectors, one upward (insufficient to lift the peg, if the vector is small, i.e. is the cord is not high to the ground) and one horizontal, which is the larger vector and is better contrasted by a vertical peg. In other terms, this test would be immensely stupid if made with the cord pulling 90° upward. The more one inclines the cord, the less stupid the test is, but a 45° inclination does not make it intelligent enough for real camping conditions. I have NO camping experience, so feel free to bash me with your years-long experience, but also instinctively I feel that for a 25° cord a peg which is perpendicular to the ground is not lifted and is more robust than a 45° peg. If the cord is very short and is inclined to the ground with a 45° degree or so, then an inclined peg would be better, as shown in this test. So the end result could be: if you use short lines, and your lines are "vertical" to the ground, you must insert the pegs inclined. If you use long lines, and your lines are less inclined to the ground, then a vertical peg should be better.

Nope, the conclusions are all faulty. If you're pegging into a soil with interlocking roots that provide vertical resistance, like what we see in this video, a stake that makes a 90 degree angle to the guy line, and a 45 degree angle to the surface of the soil makes physics sense. But, if you're pegging into a soil without any interlocking roots, or if the stake is too large relative to the resistance provided by the interlocking roots, like stakes for circus tents, then of course a stake drove straight down would have more holding strength.

This was a debate?? Sorry buddy, but simple geometry would tell you 45 degree angle would be better, but you know... What the hell do I know? LOL Great experiment, I like these types of video's

Your conclusion is wrong. Your angle of pull is all wrong.

While everybody is debating the angles, I'll just use my small 1 inch diameter spiral dog stakes wound into the ground with the flexible O ring, ... and have all my gear finished, an irish-coffee in hand, and be relaxing. Or have a vertical stake pounded into the ground with a flexible O ring. DDDDDDD

Bushcraft Bruce Science Guy

It’s basic physics no matter how you look at it. An angle, doesn’t have to be 45, is ALWAYS a bit stronger. Common sense. If you believe otherwise, you believe men can get pregnant. Hard to believe there is a debate about this.

the moral story of this video, 45 degree always the way to go?