October 25th 2010
During the Cerro Gordo trip last July I was breaking in a new tent and ground sheet. It was a bit windy so I didn't want to rely only on the weight of the queen size air mattress to hold the tent down. But I also didn't want to stake the tent down and put holes in the ground sheet (yet). So I decided to place weights at the windward corners of the tent. For weights I used a spare bearing/hub assembly, a receiver shackle bracket with shackle, and a rolled up tow strap. Also, to secure the rain fly I used my two one-gallon jugs of emergency (coolant) water and tied the cords through the handles of the jugs. Everything worked great...this time. If it had been really windy, I would have used stakes.