A week after this picture was taken, Ben's tent was still holding strong despite seven straight days of torrential rain in the Northwest Territories.
The storm won’t stop, the water’s rising in your tent’s aptly named “bathtub floor,” and it’s only a matter of time before a pole snaps or a stake rips out of the ground, and you find yourself in serous trouble. If you would have taken the time to rig your tent properly, you would be enjoying your 178th card game in a row. Instead, you slacked. And now you’re scrambling to hold things together.
The world’s strongest tent is just an expensive kite if it’s pitched poorly. I’ve seen tents full of gear flung into crevasses, tossed into trees, and blown out of sight across desert plateaus. I’ve also seen a tent ripped to shreds in a mountain storm while the one next to it was unharmed. How you pitch your tent determines whether you sleep peacefully or spend all night hoping your shelter doesn’t disintegrate.