Instead of blowing your night vision out with your state of the art LED headlamp to find that tent and / or sleeping bag zipper late at night, one tip I like to utilize is to use a short length of glow in the dark paracord as a zipper pull for your sleeping bag and tent zippers. Now you can get out of your tent at night without having to fumble to open zippers and can quickly locate your zipper pulls potentially without even having to use your headlamp.

When sufficiently "charged", glow in the dark zipper pulls can be quite helpful during the night.

Making the Zipper Pulls

For the zipper pulls around a 3/32" size works well, and I like to carefully singe the cord with a lighter at home before attaching it to my gear to prevent fraying. Sometimes it's the little things – if you’re not sold on glow in the dark paracord, MSR also offers some ready to go zipper pulls with a glow in the dark plastic tab instead – you can find those here at REI Co-op.

If using paracord, you can cut your zipper pulls long so that you can tie a knot in the end of the zipper pull – I like to use a figure 8 knot here that offers a nice grip when the knot is formed. In any event, these glow in the dark solutions will need to be “charged” in order to glow. If I’m using my headlamp (before going to bed for example) I like to hold the light on the glow in the dark item for a few seconds to charge it prior to turning off my light.