Back to Cotton

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Well, I’m officially back to cotton. Socks, that is. Since taking up hiking in the mid-1980s, I’ve worn cotton socks – no matter the weather, or the conditions of the trail. And in all that time I never had a problem with blisters. Then, roughly three years ago, for whatever reason, I decided to buy wool hiking socks. Two sets each from two major hiking sock companies. That’s when I started having problems. There were several times while hiking long trails in the Smokies that I developed blisters on the back of my heels. Then, after spending five weeks in Glacier National Park last year, hiking almost every day, I got blisters everywhere: back of my heels, on the bottom of my fore-foot area, even on my toes.

Immediately after my Glacier experience I thought the problem was with my old boots, rather than the socks. So, last December, I purchased a new pair of Merrell boots. Not wanting to wear them for the first time on a very long hike, I decided to wear my old LL Bean boots. However, I also decided to wear cotton socks on this hike, just to test my new hunch that it just may be the wool socks that are causing my problems. I figured the 12.6-mile roundtrip hike up to Rocky Top would be an excellent hike to test my theory. As you may have already concluded from the title of this post, I had no problems with blisters on this hike.

Either my feet don’t like wool, or more likely, the socks don’t fit properly. I think what’s happening is that the wool socks are a little too big, and the additional bulk is creating friction on my skin. On the other hand, my cotton socks fit “like a glove”, so to speak. In other words, they conform exactly to my feet.

The problem with the wool socks, I believe, is that the sizes are made in too broad of a range. If I remember correctly, I purchased the socks for boot sizes between 9 and 12. I wear a size 10 boot, but the socks were still a little large, and thus aren’t conforming exactly to my feet.

So, I’m back to old school, and against conventional wisdom. From now on I’m hiking in cotton socks!


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

No comments