Guy Lines

Reviewed by Sean Van Cleve

This reflective cord is easy to tie knots, making it ideal for guy lines. The 2.5mm thickness is thick enough to work knots loose without a hassle, and is high visibility both night and day for easy spotting.

MSR (Mountain Safety Research) has an extensive product line—not only tents, stoves, and water treatment, but accessories galore are available for every subcategory. When a shelter does not come with all the needed guy line, MSR’s Ultralight Cord is an excellent product to assist with stabilizing one’s shelter or tarp. MSR carries a wide range of affordable accessories  Specifications: Price: $19.95 USD Length: 32 ft /10 meters Thickness: 2.5 mm Tensile Strength: 200 lb. Reflective: Yes For those that prefer knots to cam tensioning, working with this line is extremely easy.

Read more: MSR Ultralight Cord review (1)

Featured review by Howard Koontz

The folks at Nite Ize know you're not a Boy Scout, and you're not a sailor. But sometimes you need to secure a rope to a fixed object, or a rope to another rope. Their elegant solution is the Figure 9.

I'm not a salty sailor who's ridden the high seas for decades. I'm also not a Boy Scout with a sash full of knot tying merit badges. I'm just a guy who sometimes abandons my otherwise perfectly usable home for a day or three and sleeps outside in a hammock. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person in this demographic. Because every campsite is different, there's no 'perfect' setup to how you string up your tarp, and hammock, and bug net, and gear pack, and anything else you brought with you for the trip.

Read more: Nite Ize Figure 9 Carabiner reviews (3)

Featured review by StoicFabian

A cheap, light, and highly effective item that simplifies and speeds up hanging tarps, clotheslines, etc. It has other uses as well.

Introduction A few years ago I purchased a couple of these Cam Jams to see if and how I could use them to improve my camp setup workflow. I like Nite Ize products and have a lot of their S-biners and other NI items around. It’s basic but simple, practical and well-made stuff. The Cam Jam is basically a cord tightener. As anyone who backpacks and camps knows, this has multiple uses. I’m always advocating the importance of knowing the basic knots and all, and also constantly practicing to stay sharp.

Read more: Nite Ize CamJam Cord Tightener reviews (4)

Reviewed by LoneStranger

A 50' length of reflective 2mm cord which can be cut up to make guy lines or used full length as a ridge line or for a bear hang. Includes a small biner.

What you see is what you get with the Coghlan's Reflective Guy Line; A 50' coil of 2mm line that has reflective threads woven in. It also comes with a small biner with a wire gate. While the label says Guy Line and it could be cut into lengths usable for that purpose, it can be used full length to hang a lightweight bear bag or as a shelter ridge line. I purchased this line after scouting out this tent site deep in the back country of Baxter State Park for a planned family trip. Measuring the distance between the few available trees I found that my 30' Dutchware ridge line wasn't going to cut it.

Read more: Coghlan's Reflective Guy Line review (1)

Reviewed by JRinGeorgia

This guy line has all the qualities you want: strong, ultra lightweight, highly reflective to prevent tripping over it at night, little to no stretch, holds adjustable knots like a taut line hitch well, low tangle factor, UV resistant, and made in the USA by a cottage gear manufacturer.

This is the best guy line I’ve ever used. It has all the qualities you want in a guy line: strong, ultra lightweight, highly reflective to prevent tripping over it at night, little to no stretch, holds adjustable knots like a taut line hitch well, low tangle factor, UV resistant, and made in the USA by a cottage gear manufacturer (and I am not associated with them in any way). The Scotchlite tracers are super reflective so you don’t trip over the cord at night, and I find the orange color I selected to be very visible during daylight as well.

Read more: Lawson Equipment Reflective Glowire review (1)

Reviewed by Mike Mineart

Heroclip is a hybrid gear clip that is now available in a Mini size in addition to the original size, which has now been labeled as Medium and another new size labeled as Small. The three different sizes (which range from 3 11/16 inches long for the Medium, 3 1/16 inches long for the Small, and 2 5/16 inches long for the Mini) are rated to carry loads of 60, 50, and 40 pounds respectively, and provide greater flexibility for how and where a Heroclip can be used. The Heroclip is a device that is not really designed for any one specific application, but can be used for many applications and its overall usefulness is really only limited by the creativity of the user. The applications can range from simply clipping an item to your pack to using the integrated hook to hang your pack, trekking poles, or other gear while in camp. While the Heroclip may have similarities to a climbing carabiner, it's an accessory clip only and not for climbing use in any way.

A little over a year ago I did a review on Trailspace of the initial Heroclip design which at the time only came in one size. That earlier review can be found here: Heroclip Medium Review.  Heroclip has expanded its product line and the Heroclip is now available in three sizes: Medium (the original version), Small, and Mini. Design and Construction As I shared in my original review, the Heroclip is composed of an aluminum accessory clip with a bent wire gate common to climbing carabineers that has an aluminum hook assembly attached through a plastic swivel.

Read more: Heroclip Mini review (1)

Reviewed by Second Gear

It's a nice alternative to using bungee cords. They are as useful as bungees. I liked the 24-inch pair so much, I bought a pair of 18-inch ties. I might even buy a couple sets of smaller ones. They are a very handy "hardware" bag item.

Gear Ties are one of "those little things" that are nice to throw in the pack for "just in case." Like a bungee, they are highly utilitarian, useable for all the little jobs to hold stuff down or in, or... They stay pliable in the cold. I never go snowshoeing without them! The ties work MUCH better for holding snowshoes than bungees when I want to just carry the snowshoes. The rubber coating protects the gear from wear and tear and marring. They take up just a little more room than the mini-bungees, which I heavily rely on.

Read more: Nite Ize Gear Tie review (1)

Featured review by Vladimir Gorbunov

Strong (over 200 lbs / 90 kg reported) and extremely brightly-colored 1.2-mm cord, perfect for making ultralight guylines and similar applications.

Immediately after purchasing my Hilleberg Kaitum 3 tent I saw that it contains around 25 meters of strong and overly thick 3-mm cord divided into 8 dual guylines. Normally I use the guylines on my tents very rarely, so after some time I decided to reduce the bulkiness and weight of my tent by replacing the guylines to more lightweight ones, preferably with better visibility at night. Initially I tried the cheap green Chinese 2.5 mm guylines with reflective thread. But I didn’t like their quality (the sheath had some fraying tendency), and what’s worse, these guylines were next to invisible during the daytime due to their darkish green color! In the end I was less than impressed with resulting weight and bulkiness savings.

Read more: Zpacks Z-Line Dyneema Cord 1.2 mm reviews (2)

Reviewed by Vladimir Gorbunov

Probably the best available guyline tensioners on market. They fit a variety of guylines (not only those supplied by Hilleberg), very easy to tighten and release with single hand, never slip off the line. Originally available under Clamcleat Line-Lok brand.

These guyline adjusters came with both of my Hilleberg Kaitum 3 tents (in 3-mm size), also I received a handful with my Fjallraven Abisko Lite 3 tent (in 2-mm size). Finally I purchased two more scores in 2-mm size from original manufacturer (Clamcleat, UK) for equipping my Hilleberg tent with 1.2 mm Z-Line Dyneema Cord. Actually in Clamcleat model line there are as much as four possible sizes of these line runners, but Hilleberg has wisely chosen to supply just two smallest ones, best suitable for expedition tents: CL266 Mini Line-Lok (aka 2-mm size) — fits 1-3 mm cord, as stated by manufacturer.

Read more: Hilleberg Guy Line Runners review (1)

Reviewed by Pixie Poo

ALL GRIP NO SLIP

"There are many guy tensioners in the world, these ones are mine." There are a vast array of guy tensioners in the world: bushcrafty knots, weird aluminium hooks that appear designed for hunting alien fish, wooden bolts so you can cosplay as a Mongolian Head-of-the-Yurt. Some of them can be invaluable in specific circumstances, e.g. some alloy tensioners can easily and temporarily connect two separate guys together. However, for a standard backpacking tent nothing more than a Line-Lok is required: they are small, light, do not slip, do not break, and you can release or tension them wearing gloves.

Read more: Clamcleat Line-Lok review (1)