Airpin Ultralight Aluminum Stakes

The Nemo Airpin Ultralight Stakes are aluminium tent pegs with a clever head: a hole and hooked notches that grab your guyline and hold it tight, so you never tie a knot or fiddle with a slider to get a guy taut. We sell them as a set of four, in the same bright green that makes them easy to find in the grass at pack-up.

What it does

Picture the wind picking up at dusk and one guyline flapping loose. With an Airpin you push the stake in, wrap the cord through the head, pull it to the tension you want and let go. The cord locks in place. Want it tighter in the small hours when the fly starts drumming? Unhook, pull, lock again, in the dark, with cold hands, no knots to pick at.

The shaft is tapered for driving into the ground, and the head gives you an easy striking point.

Which tents it fits

Airpins work with any tent, tarp or shelter that uses guylines. They suit the extra guy-out points on a lightweight backpacking tent, a flat tarp pitched as a rain shelter, or a vestibule you want pulled out wide. The locking head grips standard guyline cord; you can also use an Airpin as an ordinary peg at a tent corner.

Weight and packed size

Each Airpin is 15 cm long and made from 7075 aluminium, which Nemo picked for strength at minimal weight, and the set of four packs to 21 x 10 cm. That makes carrying a few spares cost you almost nothing, and an Airpin is slim enough to slide into a tent's peg bag alongside the stakes that came with it. We'd keep them in the guyline kit so they are always on hand for the windy night.