You can easily find the size that you need because the parachute cord bundles are color coded. Do the same for your ten foot lengths and your system is complete! Now you have all of those bundles contained and organized in one place. Once you have done that, take a second strand from the “X” and join it to the first with an overhand knot. Now grab any one of the four strands and start feeding it through the loops of all the individual five foot bundles. If done properly, you should be able to lay the rig out into an “X” shape. The easiest way to do this is to take two separate lengths of two foot long parachute cord, and then join them together in the center with an overhand knot. Now that we have our individual bundles, the final step is to create a cordage bundle management system so that we don’t lose track of them while packing, unpacking, or using them around camp. This process makes a bundle that is tangle-proof, self contained, and easy to take apart. Once the folds are complete, secure the entire bundle by making an overhand knot with all of the strands. If you are using a ten foot length, fold it three times. If you are using a five foot length, you will fold the loop two times. Now that your ends are joined and you have formed a big loop, start folding that loop into halves while keeping the ends nice and even. This way neither end can work itself into the main bundle… and even the worst knot that could occur will still be easy and fast to undo. Once this happens you know you are in for a time commitment, especially if multiple lengths of cordage are tangled together. To prevent this, just find the two ends of any given piece of cordage and join them together with an overhand knot. The most difficult knots to untie are the ones where the ends of the cordage somehow get tangled into the main bundle. If a need should arise for longer cordage, I can simply tie separate pieces together. Five feet of cordage is enough to handle any small task, and ten feet is enough to handle 99% of everything else. With that in mind, I converted all of my cordage into five foot and ten foot lengths while separating them into different colors to make them easily distinguishable. The result was a tangled, stressful mess. Below is a system to prevent these problems.Īfter having so many random lengths of cordage floating around in my backpack, I noticed that most of them were either short or medium pieces.

Then, when it came time to pack up camp, I would end up throwing all the random sections of cord into my pack to “deal with it later”.

I would then cut sections off from the main bundle for whatever task I encountered.

I used to just throw a large bundle of parachute cord into my pack before heading out.

Parachute cord knotes