Camping in high winds

[yourname]

Hello!

I'm just back from my first wild camping trip in the french pyrenees and I have a potentially silly question about camping in high winds.

The first night, despite the lovely weather forecast, we got hit by a surprise thunderstorm. I've been camping a good few times before but always in calm conditions so I got thinking : how much wind is too much wind for tent stakes? What would it take for them to wiggle loose and for me to fly away? Our tent isnt all that great really, there is a photo of it attached to this post. I dont know how high the wind speeds were that night because according to the internet, that storm never happened and it was a beautiful calm starry night.

[jmarkb]

Your tent is not likely to blow away while you are inside it. The most likely modes of failure are broken poles and ripped fabric. How much wind a tent can stand is very dependent on the make and model. Some tents have the facility to use a double set of poles in the same sleeves, or extra poles, to improve stability.

[Mal Grey]

If you've pitched the tent well, with good pegs angled into good ground, it is likely the tent poles will fail before the pegs pull out. I use "Y" profiled pegs mostly, which grip well though can be harder to get into the ground. Always use any extra guylines if there is any likelihood of wind, and I find they help with inner-outer separation anyway so use them all the time.

If you're in soft ground, you're right, the pegs may pull. You can double them up (at slightly differing angles) and put rocks on them to reduce the likelihood. Having a selection of different shaped pegs can help too.

In hard ground, you may struggle to get pegs in properly. I'd then be backing up with some guylines tide to things where possible. Be inventive. You can wrap a guyline round a large rock, a root or similar.

I've survived a couple of incredibly windy nights without pegs failing. Once in the Brecon Beacons during Storm Desmond it was gusting 90mph on the tops, and rushing down the valley we'd attempted to find shelter in, a scary noise that had you holding onto everything you could. The pegs held, some guys tied to a small tree, though the poles got a little bent out of shape when the tent kept turning inside out on my face.
On an island on Loch Maree, camped on sand at the top of a beach, it was hard to peg well. A variety of rocks and tree roots, plus tying guys to my 30kg canoe which was angled upside down to help protect the tent. The beach basically washed away in a F11 storm (Katie, I really need to stop wild camping during named storms!!!) but because I'd tied to other things too, the tent was still standing in the morning. Just. To be fair, I'd been holding up the poles with hands and feet during the gusts, and didn't exactly sleep, especially when the floor underneath washed out...

These illustrate the fact that with a little invention, you can make sure your tent won't blow away. It might collapse, might turn inside out and you may get no sleep at all, but it shouldn't blow away.

[Caberfeidh]

One time at Sligachan, where the Atlantic gales are funnelled between the hills down Glen Sligachan directly onto the campsite, my tent was blown flat and torn to bits by the wind and lashing rain. It was horrible, but luckily some nice bar staff gave us a lift to Carbost where we got a doss in the bunkhouse (this was 20 years ago, dunno itf the bunkhouse is still there. The thick stubby trees outside the Sligachan hotel were going back and forth like windscreen wipers. Oddly enough, the next day when we returned, the tent was still there, just in a very sorry state.
There was a man killed at Portree when his tent blew away; it is thought he was trying to pitch it on the hill known as "The Lump" when the wind caught the tent and sent him flying over the cliff behind the houses and hotels along the harbour.
If camping on soft ground, peat or sand, then broad flat wooden pegs are better than thin round wire pegs.

[al78]

Last year I was intending to knock off all the Fannich summits and pitched camp at 550m part way up An Coileachan. It started raining as I put the tent up and the weather deteriorated through the night, the wind getting stronger, the tent flapping like crazy in my face (so no quality sleep at all). By morning it was (I estimate) a full gale and difficult to stand in the gusts (I decided on a hasty retreat back to Lochluichart). The tent withstood it but the packing away was tricky, and I lost a small end pole in the process. Ended up getting a replacement from an outdoor shop in Inverness. So much for June being one of the driest and sunniest months in Scotland.