What sort of pent tegs do I need to pitch a tent in sand e.g. on or near a beach or in desert like ground? How would you do it and stop your tent falling down or blowing away?
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You of course need special sand pegs with lots of surface area, but in the absence of these you improvise: use what pegs you have and weight them down with stones If there is wood tie the guy round a stick and bury it deep. Fill a carrier bag with sand and tie the guy to it and bury it, find a sheltered spot........
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 If there are rocks available use those. Big ones on their own, small ones in piles. You can use equpment to make anchors, though of course this is one place where ultralight is not your friend. Rocks actually make very good anchors: pic below is a non-free-standing tunnel pitched pretty much exclsuively with rocks and stones (It may look like lush grass but the soil was a thin veneer over beach shingle and wouldn't take pegs). In addition to Derek's suggestions, put the guy around the middle of a peg and bury it sideways as deep as you can. Reinforcing the burial with any stones/rocks you can find will help. Free-standing tents will be okay as long as you stay inside to keep them weighed down... Cotswold have packs of snow/sand pegs at a sane price. Hilleberg's catalogue has quite a few pics of tents pitched in places where pegs in the ground isn't a simple option. Pete.
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.JPG) Like Derek says burying guys with the peg horizontal can work if the sand is right. Use whatever is around. I have, in the past when windy beach camping, pushed tent poles deeper into sand and ended up piling sand around the flysheet edge. You end up with a smaller tent interior and more condensation but the plus side is that it is not blown away! You can dig out the sand to let the floor of the tent be lower than outside if you want more internal height. Alternatively take a tent with snow valances. My friend had a cheapo mountain tent copy which she bought especially for camping on the beach and using the snow valance this way.
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 Just returned home after a month away, and had the odd experience of trying to pitch my tent on a patch of lightweight volcanic pumice gravel called jable. The stuff has no substance or holding power whatsoever, and I only had lightweight titanium pegs and a couple of beefier stakes. The stakes had holes in them, so I was able to use them with a couple of titanium pegs set transversely through them for extra stability. Rocks on top of the pegs did the rest. My pitch was well over 2000m and during the night the minimal amount of moisture in the jable froze, so that the whole area set like concrete. Every time I pulled a peg out of the ground, lumps of the stuff were stuck to it and had to be melted off, using the only readily available heat supply... from my hands!
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John - I have pitched on very soft, sandy grass with limited peg-holding capability, in the OH. Found that using two pegs together was quite effective, one behind the other, where the front one has a cord for extraction (Hilleberg in this case, but others do them). Put the front peg in as normal, second peg through the cord of the first and as far back as the cord will allow, and this peg can be more vertical. It's the best way of using two pegs together that I have come up with, but obviously longer pegs are better. In pure sand I would be looking to bury something, I think - a trekking pole section, perhaps, but I wouldn't like all that sand in the works! Paddy - that sounds fun. (enjoyed your Greenland article in TGO, BTW - inspiring and have been thinking about going for a while).
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 For soft stuff try deltagroundanchors.co.uk ,strange yellow jobs that have are not the usual peg shape. I take a couple along as no shifters.
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If two pegs crossing doesn't work in soft ground / sand / snow then plastic bags filled with the sand / snow and buried is considerd a good solution as previously suggested. I think I've seen tents up with slings ans kkabs attached to anything nearby that would hold it, in the case I saw it was rocks. Shops will try to sell you snow stakes but in really free-flowing sand I'd doubt they would work. Although in that terrain it might be better to move on to somewhere better if at all possible. Near beaches you can usually move into the sand dunes a bit and find grassy areas. I'd reckon that with a bit of grass thatch on the surface you'd get better grip with wide, v-shaped stakes. I suggest if you can take a variety of the options suggested to give you the best chance of pitching where you want to. Not a UL approach but if you have to carry stuff, you have to carry it. Enjoy your trip.
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Many years ago Saunders made a 10"PVC triangle of material that clipped onto a pegging point. You loaded this with rocks or whatever to anchor the tent. Cant remember what they were called ( stormrider ?), but I had one that I used on a Ultimate tent to ancor the rear. Alas it was borrowed and never returned. Worked well. Im sure they would work on sand buried.
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 Yep, Saunders Stormriders - like a temporary mini snow valance for pegging points. I've still got 6 of 'em 
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 You could try a t shape like a buried double iceaxe anchor, not tried it myself , but might work in sand, same as does in snow.
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I still have a set of Stormriders. TN did a clip-on valance but they seem to be off the product list now (Tiso's use them with velcro sewn on to pitch tents on carpet in the stores, smart move!). Wouldn't be too difficult to cruft up something similar though. Pete.
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