How “No Blister Socks” are made – WRIGHTSOCK Factory Tour
My favorite backpacking, hiking, hunting, running, and workout socks are the double-layer socks from Wrightsock. I visited the factory to show you how these amazing socks are made.
Where to buy Wrightsocks
Factory tour video
How I learned about Wrightsock
I have been a fan of wearing multiple layers of socks while backpacking for more than 30 years. Well…. that is not true. I have appreciated that having an inner wicking sock and thicker outer sock combine to get moisture away from your feet and reduce the chances of blisters. But I always HATED having to put on two pairs of socks at a time.
A veteran Philmont trekker shared with me his secrets to avoiding blisters and having “happy feet”:
- Wear lightweight trail runners that are well ventilated (his “go to” are the Solomon XA Pro trail running shoes) and
- Wear Wrightsocks. Wrightsocks are actually two socks in one. Since switching to that combo he has not had a single blister over a few Philmont trips.
2017 factory visit
I reached out to Wrightsock and they invited me to drive 12 minutes from Gear Report HQ to the Wrightsock mill to pick up several types of socks for our crew to test and use on our 2017 Philmont trek. It was pretty cool to actually see them making socks and meet the people that made them. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the video camera with me for that visit.
After a couple of shakedown hikes and completing 2017 Philmont itinerary 27 (plus a few side hikes) I can report that we did about 150 miles with full packs and several of us in new shoes, all wearing either Wrightsock Coolmesh II, Wrightsock Escape socks or Farm to Feet socks, and we had very few blister issues. In fact, I think I was the only one to get any sort of meaningful blisters (on the balls of both feet the last 2 days at Philmont). I attribute that to some experimentation I did with how loose I could wear my shoes on the trail. For me, at 205 Lb + 35 Lb backpack the Coolmesh II socks proved to be too thin. The fabric weave spread a bit under the heavy miles and frequent use on the trail. They were still OK, but fared better with our lighter crew members. The Escape socks are a bit thicker and held up great on the trail. I’ll take more of these next time.
I drove the Project HMMWV Battlewagon to Wrightsock’s worldwide HQ to pick up socks for testing
2021 factory visit
With another Philmont trek scheduled for this June, I reached out to Wrightsock again to see if they would like to do a bit more this time and shoot a video tour of their facility. Their new Sales and Marketing guy Russ invited me in and got me up to speed on some cool changes since my last visit.
- LOTS of new machines that make their newest socks a denser weave (that should correct the issue I noted above with the Coolmesh II)
- Some new Eco-friendly threads/yarns made from recycled bottles by Repreve just down the road in Greensboro, NC
- New post-industrial recycled wool from Recover Wool.
This time I brought the still camera, the gimbal video camera, wireless mics, etc. I’d like to think it paid off, as the video above turned out pretty well. 🙂 I left with some new socks to try and will report back on them after I’ve put some miles on them.
Pictures from the Wrightsock factory
Click each picture for a larger, clearer version.
via Gear Report at https://gear-report.com
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