Fri, 26 Sep 2025

Compound Fracture…

…of a tent pole in three places :(

We’re back from a couple weeks checking out the Northeast.

It was a chance to get out of the DC area where the temperatures are still pretty hot, see some new to us places, enjoy some pretty scenery and revel in some cooler weather.

And based on our shakeout cruise last summer, we expected to camp some of the time.

Also, based on that shakeout, we expected no issues with our tent.

Sadly, that was not the case. One of the poles broke in three places as we set up for the first time in Lamoine State Park, outside of Acadia.

Fortunately, there was a well-sized stick in the campsite that seemed like it might fit the bill.

I was pleasantly surprised it worked pretty well and we had no issues for the two nights we stayed there.

We were short on duct tape (I’m not confident that would have served by itself anyway) but had plenty of cord. That seemed to give enough support and flex to work pretty well.

There were many signs about not transporting firewood (to avoid transporting firewood-living-in critters), so we left the stick where we found it and stopped in a hardware store on our way further north to pick up some options for the next fix — without having to rely on a suitable stick.

I was hoping to get a tube sized like the patch that came with the tent so we could slip it over the pole (the patch only helped with one of the three breaks). But the tube was just too small. That may have been for the better as that allowed for that little bit of flex which I think was helpful.

Again, it held up fine for two nights — one of which was very windy.

I’ll comment later after conferring with REI about those broken poles and their commitment to standing behind their products.

And I’ll be working on posting many more photos soon.

1 comments

comments...

David wrote

Well, Shoot
REI no longer stands behind their products as they used to. The recommended tent pole technology in Vancouver as an option for repair or replacement. When I reached out, they guessed about $300 to replace all the poles (we need to replace two now and figured the others are likely to have issues in a little while as well). So I fear we may be in the market for a replacement tent (which would cost less that twice the pole replacement and give us all new fabric as well). That made me sad :(

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