Yes, my spelling can be a bit hit or miss at times, particularly when it comes to this wonderfully governed (and now bankrupt) state.
I've been in severe weather in both the high country and the desert when my tent held and people with lower quality tents had them knocked down. They were not very comfy.
Sadly, I was forced to learn my lesson by being on the opposite end of that equation one fall night many years ago in a strip of California desert north of Ocotillo but south of Anza Borrego state park. The weather in L.A. was beautiful as we departed on a Friday night, and it remained so as we drove south to San Diego, and then east on I-8 through the high country.
The cloudless, starry night gave not even the slightest hint of our impending doom until we hit the steep grade outside of Jacumba where I-8 dives down several thousand feet to meet the desert floor below. Here our convoy began to notice a slight bit of buffeting from the wind. But even occasional gusts such as these are very typical along this stretch of road. We exited I-8 at S2 in Ocotillo and proceeded north. The skies were crystal clear in any direction you looked and the big gusts of wind seemed to have subsided. At least our vehicles weren't getting bounced around any more. The only thing the least bit out of place at this point was what appeared to be a fairly steady stream of dust illuminated by the headlights running about a foot above the surface of the road. A little strange to be sure, but not so much so that anyone even commented at the time. A couple miles up the road we unexpectedly came across one of the Border Patrol's tiny mobile highway checkpoint shacks. If you've never seen one of these, I can tell you it's a pretty pathetic sight. It's basically built on top of a small trailer, and I swear the thing isn't much bigger than a phone booth. But they can drag them around anywhere and, with a small generator, run both the portable road signs that direct you to pull over, as well as some lights and com equipment for the agent inside the box. It was only then, as we pulled up to the agent and rolled down the window, that the magnitude of our problem became apparent. Immediately gale force winds blasted into the vehicle. The roar made it difficult to communicate with the BP agent who politely inquired as to just what we could possibly be doing out here on a night like this. When we told him we were going to set up camp another couple miles up the road, it was all he could do to contain his laughter. He shook his head, wished us well, and sent us on our way.
As it turned out, the reason our vehicles no longer felt like they were being buffeted by big gusts is because the sustained winds in-between the 60 mph gusts has climbed up to the 35 and 40 mph range. The GPS easily identified the precise jeep trail I had preselected for our camp sight that night and we immediately went about the business of setting up our tents. Within ten minutes my not inexpensive Eureka four-man dome tent was reduced to garbage. It had six or eight beefy aluminum poles that slid up through long sleeves sewn into the sides of the tent. These all met and were pushed into a large central hub at the top of the tent. Because of the tension that was designed into the tent to keep the fabric taut, you had to insert the poles from opposite sides. Under these conditions, even with three large men working together, it was physically impossible to get the third pole into the hub. After a couple of attempts, the force of the wind acting against the tent fabric caused the two already inserted poles to completely taco just above where my brothers were holding them in their hands. Game over.
My younger brother had just bought the previously mentioned four season Sierra Designs tent. By putting one person and a bunch of gear inside his tent to keep it from blowing away, we were rather quickly able to get the corners staked out. Erecting the rest of the tent was fairly simple after that. It made it through the rest of the night's hurricane force winds with no problems. My youngest brother had an old Coleman tent that was even less expensive than mine. His was more of a traditionally styled rectangular tent, however, and by repositioning his Jeep perpendicular to the wind we were able to tie off the upper corners of the tent to the gear rack on top of the Jeep, and the bottom corners to the rims of the wheels. Not an ideal set up by any means, but it too survived the night.
I've had a four season tent ever since.
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