Strangely, several campsites near me recently (well 10 years ago now) added a layer of gravel over most of the individual sites. Several inches thick.
I guess there was a good reason for this, like preventing vans getting bogged or improving drainage. However it makes tent camping challenging.
If a peg hits a larger stone, it will not go down stuck (and may bend). On the other hand, if I get lucky, it will go down just fine.
I am looking for a method to either:
- Preclear the tentpeg area of large stones.
- I've had some success using an axe on the area before, but it destroyed the edge.
- Discover a valid point before beating in the peg
- Perhaps a fine knitting needle? (I think probing would take too long)
- An alternative to using pegs at all
- Sandbags would be one option, but filling them would be annoying (I doubt the park rangers would like me digging up part of the site)
Or some other lifehack solution that circumvents/overcomes this problem.