moccasin tread

Did moccasins have any kind of tread on the sole?If so what was it ?Seems like if you were in steep terrain you would slide around alot.Thanks

 

[renovato]

Rawhide, and I can't even imagine how slippery that has to be. Soles is one of those places where I "cheat".

 

[Claude Mathis]

My soft soled moccasins grip rather well, wet or dry.

 

No tread that I know of Crowhop. Ya gotta learn how to use your whole foot when moving about. Use your toes.
:thumbsup:

 

[Claude Mathis]

Ya gotta learn how to use your whole foot when moving about. Use your toes.

Exactly. Walk as if you're barefoot, with a little extra protection beneath your feet.

 

[LRB]

If you want to cheat a bit, coat the soles with shoegoo. They will grip like sneakers and an hour of wearing them on ground will make the soles dark and the shoegoo very hard to detect.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The way to walk quietly in the woods, or on slick surfaces with smooth bottoms is to unlock your knees when you walk, and keep them unlocked. This forces you to keep your weight on your back foot, put the front foot down flat on the surface, and only THEN transfer your weight to the forward foot, for maximum traction( Coefficient of friction). Once you learn this different way of walking, you can learn to trot and even run doing it. You will experience much less movement in your shoulders, and will appear to glide across the ground, instead of bopping up and down. A good way to practice is to carry two heavy pails of water, one in each hand. Don't let the water splash out, and don't let it begin sloshing back and forth, either. The only way to accomplish those goals is to walk with bent knees. When walking on slick surfaces- mud, Ice, etc. keep your feet shoulder width, but pitch the toes outward so you form a bit of a triangle stance. The outward pitch gives you a wider and more stable platform for shifting your weight from one foot to the other, even when walking with bent knees. If you exaggerate the bent knees thing, you will walk like Groucho Marx!

 

[Twisted_1in66]

**SNIP**If you exaggerate the bent knees thing, you will walk like Groucho Marx!

That's the silliest thing I ever heard...

Great visual Paul. I wore out a pair of center seam mocs I made from a kit, and I used them everywhere I went. They were great for use in the woods but lousy for use on gravel or blacktop. The only place I had a problem with traction was in the snow and ice one February a couple of years ago at the Southern Vermont Primitive Biathlon in Manchester, VT. I found I could get around pretty well in those slick conditions doing exactly what you just described, including walking up the hill to the "King of the Hill" shoot.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Everything looks silly until that first time you slip and fall on your tailbone. I grew up where ice was very common all winter long, and learned that lesson early. Unfortunately, I had to repeat that lesson several times before I forgot about silly, and started concentrating on staying upright, no matter what other people think. i once carried my fiance down ice covered narrow steps, then down a sloped ice covered driveway, and then jogged with her down the middle of the ice covered street to her car, where I stood her up right next to her door, just to prove to her I knew what I was doing, and she would be safer with me carrying her than if she tried to negotiate the ice herself. I recall hearing her both lauging and screaming at the same time the entire trip! But, she never challenged me about how to walk on ice again. She even had me show her parents how to walk on ice a couple of days later. Walking out on a frozen lake to ice fish is another place where you either learn to walk correctly, or spend a lot of time on your butt!

The walk I descibe is called the Fox Walk, in Tom Brown, Jr.'s book, Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking, BTW. I had been doing it for more than 20 years before I read his book, so I described it to you my way, and not how its described in his book. For hunters, its a great walk to use to move quietly through the woods.

 

Thanks for the tips.

 

[scott adair]

The owner of Walking Liberty Mocassin's coats the bottom of his with a mix of barge cement and ground tire rubber from a tire recapper. His website has in fo on the process.


Scott