Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Wind and Wall Tents

Just got back from our elk hunt and had a couple nights of some serious weather. I've hunted out of our wall tents for probably close to twenty years now and we've dealt with just about every kind of weather imaginable but this last week was about the worst I've ever dealt with. We had sustained wind storms of steady 20-30 mile per hour winds and gusts of 55-65 mph over and over for at least a 12 hour period two nights out of six at our camp spot. No sleep at all those nights as it felt like the tent was going to blow away and down the canyon many times. Along with the snow and snow mixed with rain, the wind was so strong it actually pulled out most of the stakes we had been able to get down into the rocky soil and move the large logs we had put down to tie down to for extra stabilization. We have metal frames for the tents and when lit up at night you could see the frame flexing quite a bit when the gusts hit the tent... Even knocked our stove pipe off one night. I've been in windstorms before with our tents but these two were unnerving and it was difficult to hunt those days with an almost total lack of sleep from the night before.. trees were falling around us, our crapper tent blew over and bent the frame and our throne blew a few feet across a meadow... as dawn broke the wind died down like it never happened...

We were probably lucky nothing serious happened to us or our tents, but it was touch and go for a bit there... anyone else have storm stories in your tents?

Bob

We camped out on a dirt job for a couple months on a windy ridge in the Sierra's with a big wall tent. Only took a few days and one night when the stove pipe came crashing down and we went and cut some large long lodgepole pine and re-erected the tent with an external structure of 7 poles. Problem more or less solved. Today, there is a windfarm on that ridge.

I’ve seen many camps destroyed over the years. Wall tents framed with timber seemed to do better than the tube frames. Those small $150-$200 dollar 3-5 man tents have a propensity to become an umbrella in high wind and have ended up waded, stuck against some dense timber.

Finding hunters inside their trucks was a common sight. Definitely a rough night.

🦫

Staking them down well and using guy ropes to keep the tent tight is mighty important. In the wrong type of ground conditions that can definitely be a problem. I use military surplus tent stakes for the guy ropes and some good hooked metal tent stakes for the grommets on the walls. I'm not a welder so I ordered the hooked tent stakes from Hogan https://hogantentstakes.com/product-category/tent-stakes/

Been there done that. Those nasty nights I wear earplugs to bed. It’s the only way I can get any sleep. Otherwise I’m up all night listening to branches snap off the trees wondering if one is coming through the roof of the tent.

We had weather like that a couple weeks ago in Idaho. My three buddies were in my outfitter tent and I was in a small trailer. 30 hours of crappy weather. My tent was a little dirty from the year before and it rained and blew so hard it power washed the one side. It definitely made for some ruff sleep. The metal frame I made did hold up very well. Hell I thought the tea was going to tip over at one point.

I will be making some upgrades before next year.

I made these for my wall tent. 5/8" re-bar with a 5/16" piece welded on it for the rope. Put the bend in them so I could have something to get hold of for pulling them out of the ground. I keep them painted so I don't lose them.

My wall tent has the long nails but what you have there would definitely be a big improvement.

Always a rough night in weather like that.
I used v shaped steel welded a hook on the end to hold rope they seem to hold up better than the round stock i had.i cut the bottom to a point to help drive in.

Really helped.

I camped in a wall tent for years until I had a similar experience as you.

I did away with the wall tent and did some research and found a tent that will with stand the wind....

I bought a Kodiak Canvas springbar tent. It will hold up to the wind.... It's the most popular tent at Burning Man.

If I had to do it again, I would get the Davis tent "go tent"

I had not seen the Davis Go tent. I am so used to seeing them at the hunters expo and seeing what new I haven’t looked at there website. My tent is a Davis and for the most part it has been fantastic.

Yup, BTDT! Hard to get any sleep those nights, our tents were solid and well staked, but the worry of limbs falling and horses demeanor not to mention the noise would keep me up all night!

T-posts cut into 24" lengths hold pretty good.



The nails that came with the Davis were not nearly enough holding power in exposed windy conditions.

Since then we sold the wall tent. We use a 12-man tipi from Seek Outside, or a 10x10 Kodiak springbar style tent with 18" military tent stakes.

12-man tipi rides the wind pretty good.

I recall back in my USMC days one time we set up some GP tents on OP Crampton in 29 Palms. Winds were fierce for several days. We put basketball size rocks around the sod skirts. Eventually the wind ripped one of the GP tents wide open at the side. That is some heavy canvas. It sucked.

We just dealt with that wind storm in eastern Oregon. It was a bad one. We were protectced from all sides but the front /doors side, which faced south and the way the terrain was, it created a funnel and we got hammered by the south wind.
We lost the cook tent but the 16x20 Davis held strong.
I also made my own 16” rebar stakes as one of the guys above. But not as nice.
After our cook tent blew away around midnight, we salvaged what we could in the sideways hail. We took all the heavy totes and fortified the doors by placing the sod under the totes with the heavies of fire wood we had in the tent and set it on top of the totes
Tried to go two totes tall, but when the gust blew it pushed the totes over.
At about 2 AM, I was still up and smelled some smoke. Went to check the stove and with the walls getting pushed in so much it pushed some of our wood stack too close to the stove and I found 2 pieces charred and smoking..
It was a long night to make sure we stayed safe, as I had my daughter and her Boyfriend with me.

Never considered the T posts either. The nails that came with the Davis have always been fine until this year. They work great until they don’t. Definitely time to upgrade.

I find that in most of the places we hunt in Eastern Oregon the rock is so bad it is almost impossible to get stakes in where we need them. Most of my existing stakes are bent from being pounded in around and against rocks. Time to make up some new stakes like the ones above and give them a try... having your tent try to leave in the middle of the night isn't fun at all and I need a good night's sleep to hunt effectively...

Nothing like running around in your underwear in horizontal blowing snow/sleet/hail/rain and putting your tent back together, fixing your stove pipe back together, finding your crapper tent blown across the meadow you're camped in, and wondering if a tree or big branch fell on your vehicle while you couldn't hear a thing above the howling wind. And all at anywhere from 15 degrees to maybe 40 degrees.... good times.....

Shiester I hear ya.

Been several sleepless nights up in the Wyoming Bridger Wilderness. Most memorable was a night at Summit Lake camp. The pack outfitter that I worked for had a dude camp setup where we all had canvas miner or wall tents while the guests had older aluminum pole Eurekas etc. the following morning we had a pole straightening & clothes drying party. After a few hours they began to laugh and tell their stories - not at first tho. For many it was a reminder that we aren’t in charge but merely guests here on Earth.

Glad you guys were all prepared and walked away trusting those thin canvas sheets even more that before.

Gotta love it

I edited only to add that previously, the guests gave us lots of guff about our cowboy coffee (folgers
/water/eggshell) but that morning we made several more pots than normal lol.

I used some of my 2' by 3/4 inch concrete stakes for my little 10 by14 Davis tent. Don't know if those would be more economical for some of you or not. Those custom made rebar stakes are the bees knees, for sure, and the ones we used to have were #6 rebar.