Reviews > Clothing > Socks > SealSkinz Socks and Gloves > David Anderson > Field Report

I have car camped since about the time I started to walk, and went on my first backpack when I was 10 or 11 years old. I have also become involved in sea kayaking since I moved to the northwest. But somewhat more important to this test, I never really got over my love for playing in puddles. Sunny weather is for hanging out at the beach, the really good weather for going out and doing stuff is a good rain storm, where the world comes alive and all the wonderful shades of green show so clear and alive. And there's nothing quite so soothing as falling to sleep to the sound of the rain on the nylon overhead.

I already owned the regular SealSkinz socks and gloves, so I chose to test the WaterBlocker Socks and the Gauntlet Gloves. I was most interested in seeing how well the WaterBlocker socks perform, since I periodically have to cross rivers that go above the cuffs of the over the calf socks.

Location of test

I tested the products on a couple of backpacks to the Olympic National Park, both to the mountains and the coast. I took them on several dayhikes in the Cascade foothills and also on a sea kayaking daytrip.

The Field Test

SealSkinz socks and gloves are made with 3 layers laminated together. The inner layer is made of Coolmax to help transport your perspiration away from your skin. The middle layer is made out of a waterproof hydrophilic membrane. The outer layer is made out of nylon and Spandex.

The membrane used in SealSkinz products is not breathable in the normal sense. Most breathable fabrics use a microporus membrane that has pores small enough for water vapor to escape, while being too small for water droplets to enter. The membrane in SealSkinz is hydrophilic which means that it attracts water molecules. There are no holes for it "breathe".

The Gauntlet Gloves

The SealSkinz Gauntlet Gloves extend about half way up my forearm. They provide a fairly snug fit both on my hands and my arms. They were too snug to fit over anything more than light shirt sleeves and were bulky enough to be a hassle when worn under jacket sleeves.

The gloves did an excellent job of keeping my hands dry, even after spending a couple of hours digging around in tidepools. And as long as the gloves weren't soaked, they kept my hands warm enough. I found that if the outer layer was completely soaked that I needed to wear liner gloves to keep my hands warm.

The palm side of the gloves are covered with little rubber gripper dots that do an incredible job on anything short of moss covered rocks. On the other hand I found the gloves and gripper dots to be a real pain when it came to any sort of fine motor skills like lighting the stove or preparing food.

The gloves do seem to be quite durable, they even withstood a rather unexpected pinch from a rock crab (the skin underneath didn't fare so well). I have yet to lose any of the gripper dots on either pair of SealSkins gloves.

The WaterBlocker Socks

The major difference between the WaterBlocker socks and my regular SealSkinz socks is that just below the cuff they have a 2" section of membrane that will make contact with your skin, hopefully forming a decent seal. You then fold the cuff down over the membrane portion of the sock to apply a bit more pressure.

Since I haven't had any real need to cross and rivers that were deeper than the tops of my socks, I've taken to wandering in knee deep water just to test the waterblocker socks out, and wearing them on some longer hikes to see how comfortable they are when worn all day.

When wandering in still water the socks would only let a very small amount of water past the cuffs that only became noticable after about 10 minutes. In rushing water it would take less than half that amount of time if you don't have clothes or gaiters over the top to reduce the water preassure on the seal, but in reality I'm not that likely to be standing in the middle of a stream for 5 minutes, I'm going to be trying to get across as quickly as I can.

While wearing my kayaking wetsuit I found that the additional pressure from the neoprene on the cuffs, and the reduced water flow under the wetsuit made it so that my feet were able to stay completely dry. I was unable to get any water to enter the socks even when I was swimming.

My first complaint about these socks is that they are very uncomfortable to wear for an extended time. I think they designed the socks so that they would keep the water out on people with small calves, which leads to cutting off the circulation on those of us with large calves. It would have to be an extremely wet hike before I would be willing to wear these socks for more than a couple of hours.

My other problem with them is that you really need to get some short socks to wear under these things if you want any sort of liner. I had to roll down the tops of my socks to get them to keep them out of the way of the seal. This added to the problem of cutting off my circulation.

Conclusion

Both the socks and the gloves perform their designed functions very well, they keep you a lot drier than normal socks or gloves. But I intend to stick with their normal length gloves and over the calf socks unless I find myself in a specific situation that the Gauntlet Gloves or the WaterBlocker Socks would be the appropriate choice.

David Anderson
www.quiet-like-a-panther.org

Reviews > Clothing > Socks > SealSkinz Socks and Gloves > David Anderson > Field Report