Emergency Uses

#80 · Emergency tent peg

Sharpen the end slightly and push into soft ground as a makeshift peg for a tent corner or tarpaulin edge.

A peg is lost or bent, it's getting dark, and there is a takeaway chopstick in the bottom of the tent bag. It is not as good as a real peg and it will not survive a gale, but on soft ground in ordinary weather it will hold a guy line through the night.

How to do it

Push the pointed end in at about 45 degrees, leaning away from the tent - not vertically.
Loop the guy line over it as close to the ground as you can get.
Press it further in with a boot heel rather than hammering it. A struck chopstick splits.
Leave only two or three centimetres proud. Every extra centimetre above ground is leverage working against you.
If the ground is at all loose, use two side by side, or cross two in an X.

Why it works

A peg fails by rotating in the soil, not by pulling straight out. Angling it away from the load means the line pulls along the peg's length rather than levering it sideways, and keeping the loop low reduces the lever arm doing the rotating. Both matter more with a weak peg than a strong one.

If it isn't working

It pulls out under tension: too shallow, too upright, or the loop is too high. Fix all three.
It snapped going in: the ground is too hard. Move the pitch or use a rock to weight the line instead.
It holds but the line keeps slipping off: cut a shallow notch near the top for the loop to seat in.

Tips & warnings

Soft ground only. In stony or baked soil this will not work at any angle.
Buy spare pegs. They cost pennies and weigh nothing, and this entry should never be your actual plan.