Getting back to the somewhat original issue, I may have figured out how Legolas successfully walked over the snow without leaving a print.
What if the souls of his slippers weren't as small as we tend to think? Someone in the Fellowship noted that Legolas wore slippers. To me, these are light duty shoes that barely cover the feet. The area of these shoes would be no larger than anyone would think odd.
So we've been working diligently trying to figure out how to decrease the pressure Legolas exerts on the snow, where pressure = weight (force)/area, and thinking that the shoes were normal size, tried to reduce the elf's weight.
But what if the slippers had an area three to five times that which is expected? Think snowshoes. The pressure on the snow would decrease linearly as the area increased. If Leggy weighed in at 150 pounds, increasing the area of his slippers 3-5 fold drops his virtual weight to 50-30 pounds.
But you're saying, "Come on, alatar, the Fellowship may have been snowblind, but they weren't totally blind. Surely someone would have noticed that large slippers..."
Would they? What if Legolas (and all other elves) carried snowshoes made of
Aerogel? Would anyone see what Legolas had on his feet in the snow? If the soles were given some type of pattern that looked natural, would even a tracker know that an elf walked that way?
We truly live in a magical world, and this is only 2007. What wonders will our children see?
