Comfortable, Durable, Good Design, Regulates Temperature Well, Wicks Away Moisture

Backpacking, Daily Use, Hiking, Travel

Outdoor Professional

Feels true to size

Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

For 30 years, I have exclusively worn these socks with all my dress and casual shoes and with my summer boots. Rohner trekking socks are about twice as thick as ordinary thick wool socks, and I had to size my shoes a bit bigger to do this. (I order 30-40 pair of these socks every few years; it's nice that Sierra Trading Post sells them, so I don't have to get them from Switzerland any more.) Except for thick boot socks with thin liners with my heavy boots or Sorel boots, I always wear these socks. Why are they so good? Wool is superior to cotton or artificial fibers: it doesn't mat down, and in the summer, keeps your feet drier than cotton. As a result, though, these socks are a bit slow to dry, compared to all-artificial fiber socks. These were the model for the "Hamlet Socks" (Google it) developed by the US Army to prevent blisters; inside-out SmartWool are an alternative. Having the terry-cloth loop padding on the _outside_ decreases blisters. (That way, the sliding movement is between the sock and the shoe, not the sock and the foot.) Loops also should be tightly twisted to avoid matting - in my opinion (also Murray Hamlet's), SmartWool socks' terry loops are not twisted quite tightly enough. These are moderately durable, though not so much as the artificial-fiber versions. Nonetheless, your feet will hurt less if you wear these instead of the all-artificial fiber versions. These are touted as the finest socks in the world, and having tried many other socks over the past 30 years, I've found none superior. Caveat: some of the colors are really, really garish. But there are plenty of less-garish colors to choose from. Buy lots of them when you can; sometimes the color you want won't be available for several years.