Indestructible Shoe Laces

My shoes are about a year old now and my laces have been at the end of their life for a few weeks. Laces always fray. I knew there were synthetic materials out there that have to last longer than the shoelaces that come with your shoes. So, a quick search online revealed someone’s suggestion for the use of paracord.

My shoe laces are now made from 550 Paracord, Coyote Brown. It’s a type of narrow cord made for the military which purportedly has a tensile strength of 550 pounds. Seems pretty impressive. I ordered a 100 foot length from ebay, cut the appropriate length to replace my old worn out shoe laces and then burned the ends down so those wouldnt fray. The seem to hold very well, but it’s important to note 2 things.

One. When melting the ends of the cut cord, the black melted plastic terminus of the lace was too big to fit through the grommets on my shoes, it had to be trimmed with a knife.

Two. This material is much more slippery than cotton laces, you have to tie your shoes tighter or with a more secure knot in order to keep them tied all day.

Other than that, the experiment with replacing my shoelaces has been successful. And, with about 93 feet left I’ll be able to replace the laces on a lot of shoes.

If I do not return

I am venturing into North Cheyenne park with Becca. We will be gone hiking for only a little while. I have new socks and new hiking boots. We are slowly expanding our collection of hiking and backpacking gear. The main thing we are missing is the backpacks. We currently have good boots, a tent and one sleeping bag. We also have some other miscelaneouse stuff like water bottles, a folding saw, and small things like that. We are in need of some more durable hiking clothes, another sleeping bag, 2 lightweight sleeping pads, a smaller day-pack for Becca and a Larger backpack for myself, somewhere around 4000 in3.

And there is so much more that we will need, a stove, some cooking pots and utensils, compressions straps for the sleeping bags, food, more water bottles and reservoirs for the packs. All, in all it seems to take a lot of equipment to go out into the wilderness for a weekend. And a lot of money, but it’s nice to know that we are investing in something that we both really enjoy doing together. I really feel like hiking is a good join activity.

Though I think sometimes Becca and I have different goals when we go out. I enjoy the fresh air, and soaking up some nature and solitude. Becca focuses more on being together and talking while we hike. Which is fine.

I have other things to talk about but none of them are related to this current topic. So the geekery will have to wait until later. We are ready to go now anyways. If I go missing blame Becca. ^.^