Snow Anchor

These are my snow stakes of choice when I use a bivy sack on or beside the snow. I like these because their:

• Short vertical height makes them easy to place when the snow is hard but shallow. Just bang them a few times. With shallow snow, ice axes / pickets are difficult to plant securely. Shallow snow situations tend to occur where I find bivy spots behind rocks for shelter against the wind.
• Vertical bend in the middle makes them go in nice and easy. Center mounted cables effectively drive anchors deeper into the snow when weighted.
• Swedges ensure that the snow stakes are placed at the correct angle.

I used these on Mount Whitney in April with my bivy sack under 80-100 mph winds. They were excellent and in the morning the snow had frozen over so that I had to beat them out with my ice axe. I've also used them on Rainier in March. Though I like these enough that I find no reason to try out the DMM Deadman I recently had to get a 3rd fluke and my curiosity got the best of me so now I have a DMM as well. Some differences are that the DMM has a main flat face which may not not be as effective in automatic repositioning as the fluke is weighted. Another difference is that the cable is not swedged so the snow fluke can be placed at any angle relative to the wire - not as foolproof as the SMC swedged cable.

For group situations with higher-profile tents, I still prefer to bury pickets, axes, poles, and shovels in place of tent stakes. I haven't the opportunity to rappel off of flukes or pickets yet.

As John says, these are great in shallower snow but be careful in deeper snow. A friend took a 30 foot fall (to the ground) when rappelling off a fluke when the fluke broke through the hard shallow snow and sunk in deeper.