| Long-term Report:
My use of the Wilderness Wear Kosciuszko socks during the
long-term testing phase of this test has been dominated by my seven day walk
of the Fitzgerald River National Park.
During this walk the socks were worn in my Raichle Cave Low trail shoes. I
don't have the distance walked on this hike, distances were meaningless,
but I started off the hike carrying approximately 24 kg (53 lb) and whilst
the food component of that weight declined over the walk, the load carried
on some days did escalate as additional water had to be carried. Up to seven
litres at times (7 kg / 15.5 lb). The socks were worn either on
their own or in combination with my Wigwam liners. I took all three
pairs of Kosciuszko socks on this walk and they all got a workout.
The above seven days of walking was supplemented with continued
use of the socks on local exercise walks around Lake Herdsman. On these
walks they were worn in my New Balance 806 trail runners.
Overall based on my usage of the socks
during this test, I am very happy with them and plan on continuing to use them
beyond the test period and purchasing replacements in due course.
In my
Initial Report I indicated five specific aspects that I wanted to focus
on in this test series. As we have not experienced much rain during the
long-term testing phase I have not been able to test the socks in wet
weather walking conditions, however, the other aspects have been explored in
the long-term testing phase.
The four aspects are: durability, comfort, support and smell management.
My experience in the long-term phase mirrored what I reported
in the
Field Report and is summarised below:
In respect of all four testing points I am pleased to report no issues.
The socks have shown no noticeable signs of wear,
there is no fraying of threads or others signs of durability issues. Comfort-wise I have found the socks very comfortable to wear throughout the test
series.
I have found the socks to be supportive and
no slippage has been evident. If anything they are a bit thick for my New
Balance trail
runners but fine with my Raichle trail shoes.
Smell management. I am not the best judge of smell as my
sense of smell is not very strong. In that context I have not found any
issues with the socks, but I can't comment on my fellow walkers' experiences!
At least no one has whinged to me. The socks appear to be quite good
at resisting the take up of smell, even on the longer walks.
In summary, as indicated early, I am very happy with my
Wilderness Wear Kosciuszko socks and anticipate purchasing further pairs
once this set comes to the end of its life.
My thanks to
BackpackGearTest.org and Wilderness
Wear for allowing me to test the Kosciuszko socks.
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