A league is the average distance something can travel in an hour. For a person that is about 3 miles. So 7 league boots should be called 21 mile boots.
The idea behind 7 league boots is that somehow each step in them would be 7 leagues. Now that is continent crossing speed. It would only take a couple hundred steps to cross 4 000 miles. No wonder some people’s eyes light up when they hear about 7 league boots.
But how could boots do this – without using actual magic? Well they could be incredibly tall – how about 7 leagues high. And the part that goes around your leg and foot would just be a small part. Almost all the height would have to be in the heel!
But wait, you couldn’t get up in these if you put them on at the ground – you wouldn’t have the leverage to stand up. So how about putting them on at a 7 league high cliff? Well you’re absolutely right – earth has no mountains 21 miles high. In fact you couldn’t breathe at such heights due to the thin air. So let’s scale these boots back and make them 1 mile boots. People have no problem breathing at the elevation of 1 mile like in Colorado.
To take each step, the boots must be light enough. That means they would need to be made out of the thinest, strongest, lightest material possible. Let’s hope that carbon fiber technology or even something better could make this possible.
There is another problem with being a mile high. You need to be safe in case of falls. Mile long falls will kill you. So you would have to strap a parachute to your back.
Walking would be a problem because of that leverage problem. You couldn’t take a 1 mile step at first but you might be able to work up to it. You could successfully take a first small step, then a longer one and a longer one. With each successive step your legs would have to add force. Eventually you could work your way up to mile long steps and a potential continent crossing.
You take a step in about a second. So this would mean that you would be going about a mile a second or about 3 600 miles an hour when you have built up your speed. Which is almost Mach 5. Mach 1 is travel at the speed of sound so of course your 1 mile boots would make you create sonic booms. Ear plugs would be a must.
Even travel on the plains would be fraught with danger. Imagine stepping into a ground hog hole. Like a horse this would very possible break your long spindly boots. You would of course catch yourself on time with your parachute and fall slowly to the ground. You might have to have an “ejector” on your boots so the fall doesn’t break your leg or worse.
So, to be careful on the plains, you would need binocular vision to examine the ground a mile or more away. These binoculars might be zoom binoculars and should be attached to your face over your eyes. This might also be an acceptable strategy in gently rolling hills. But going over mountains might be too dangerous. Perhaps the mountains would be an acceptable risk in extremely well mapped ground that you had memorized before hand.
Near to your destination you need to slow down by taking smaller and smaller steps and having a tower a mile high that you can safely dismount your 1 mile boots in. Now someone (with the same shoe size), can now take the journey opposite to what you have done.
