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Got roasted on a forum for my tent stake setup, actually was good advice
Last spring I posted a pic of my campsite setup on a gear group and this guy just hammered me for using those cheap plastic tent stakes. Said they'd snap first time I hit rocky ground. I was all defensive at first, told him I'd been using them for 3 years no problem. Then on a trip up near the Sierras last August, I tried to pound one in and it cracked clean in half. Swapped to some MSR Groundhogs after that, cost me about $30 for a set of 8. Has anyone else had a cheap piece of gear totally fail on them when they needed it most?
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finley_smith22h agoTop Commenter
Honestly, isn't it wild how bad advice can sometimes be the best thing that happens to you? That whole thing reminds me of how we push through with broken stuff in everyday life because it's familiar. Like, I had a coffee grinder that was basically held together with tape, and I kept using it because it worked "good enough" until the motor literally caught fire. Tbh, we all do this with tools, relationships, even our own bad habits. We get so comfortable with the cheap, flimsy version of things that it takes a real failure to force us to level up. Ngl, that forum guy probably saved you from a night of your tent collapsing in the wind, which is a lot more expensive than $30.
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blairm7720h ago
The motor caught fire? That grinder was definitely past the tape fix stage.
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Yeah Blair's point about getting comfortable with broken stuff really hit me. I was the same way with those plastic stakes, swore by them because they were cheap and light. But after that Sierras trip where I had to dig a cracked stake out of the ground with my multitool I started rethinking all my gear choices. Now I actually listen when someone calls out my setup, even if it stings a little at first.
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