Snow angels

[Gothmog]

maybe they are able to spread their weight around in such way as to take advantage of the whole surface area of their feet while humans and hobbits will lean heavily on the back or front end of their feet and therefore apply pressure concentrated on a single point rather than spread out??

Possible, but I don't think that is enough. Take for example Legolas with the known weight of 60 kg. His feet measured around 0,1x0,3 m = 0,03 m2. Assuming that Midlle Earth has about the same gravity as our Earth, that would give us P=(60x10*)/0,03=20 000 N/m2. *= the gravity constant, which is about 9,8 but here 10 is used to simplify things as the ME-value is unknown. Now think of Boromir, who weighs 85 kg and has feet measures of 0,15x0,40. The pressure would be about 14 000 N/m2.

As you can see, the feet size is far more important that the weight and, assuming Boromir uses his whole foot, Boromir is actually less likely to go through the snow! To get a pressure as high as Legolas', his feet has to be smaller, for example 0,15x0,28 m.

***NOTE: All numbers regarding the characters weight is from their official hospital records that Elven Maids Weekly found when investigating the life of Legolas, se nr. 4, year 24 of the fourth age.***

***NOTE 2: If you find any errors in my calculations, I blame it all on being tired, not having done any physics in the last two years and Elven Maids Weekly for false information***