Stakes

One thing I had read about the Black Rock desert is that every structure needed to be staked down. Winds can be in excess of 90mph. I had brought stakes with me for this purpose, but I decided not to use them.

My thoughts were:
"This dome weights over a thousand pounds. It has more than enough air flow going through the panels. There is no way this thing is going to move."

I was wrong. On one of the winder days I watched a 20 foot diameter geodesic dome take flight. The unfortunate campers were using a parachute for a covering (designed to catch wind). The dome lifted up, rolled over and crashed into three parked cars.

Our dome never came close to anything like that, but what it did do was "creep". As the gust of wind rocked the dome it slowly moved across the desert. When we left the dome had moved 18". We got lucky but from now on everything will be staked down.

In this photo you can see the vertical strut in the middle of the door is leaning to the right. This is from the creep.





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