How much do tent pegs add to pack weight?

Pegs are precisely what separates a tent’s trail weight from its packed weight, and a full set is a figure worth multiplying out rather than waving away. Makers publish a stated weight per peg, and eighteen of anything adds up.

Do the multiplication

Take the peg count the tent maker publishes, take the stated weight per peg from the peg you actually carry, and multiply. That number is the one missing from a trail weight, along with guylines and the stuff sack.

It is worth doing because the answer is often larger than expected, and because it is the cheapest weight on the whole pitch to change. Nothing else in a shelter can be swapped for a lighter version this easily.

Length is what you are really buying

Length is the figure that decides holding power — the long ones bite below the dry crust — and it trades directly against the stated weight per peg. A short peg in soft turf pulls out, and a peg that pulls out at three in the morning costs more than the grams it saved.

That trade is why carrying a mixed set usually beats carrying one type. A set of Y-stakes in 7075 aluminium for normal ground, plus four steel nail pegs for the corners, covers far more pitches than eighteen identical pegs and weighs less than eighteen steel ones.

The ground chooses the peg, not the tent

A Y or V cross-section in 7075 aluminium resists twisting in soft turf and is the general-purpose answer. A round steel nail peg takes a hammer into stony or baked ground where an alloy peg folds — it is heavier per peg and it is the only thing that works there. A wide plastic or alloy stake spreads load in sand and snow, where a thin peg simply pulls through.

Each of those has a different stated weight per peg, so a peg weight quoted with no type beside it is not comparable with another.

Check they pass through the loops

Diameter has to pass through your tent’s own peg-out loops. It is a dull thing to check and it is the reason a set of otherwise excellent pegs sometimes goes back. Check the head too: a hooked or notched head keeps a guyline from riding off, and a small cord loop is what lets you pull a buried peg out without a tool.

Where the weight really goes

Tents ship with the cheapest pegs the maker can supply, which is why this is the first thing most people replace — and why the peg weight in a published packed figure often describes pegs nobody keeps.

If you replace them, the honest accounting is: subtract the supplied set’s stated weight, add your own. Then note that number beside the tent’s trail weight, and you have a figure that describes your pack rather than the maker’s.

Guylines and the sack, while you are there

The rest of the trail-to-packed gap is guylines and a stuff sack. Guyline cord is sold by length and diameter with a published breaking strength, and swapping a heavy factory line for a lighter one is a smaller saving than the pegs but the same kind of arithmetic. The stuff sack you can simply leave at home, and many people do.