Late this summer and early into to fall, we had a group of friends attempt to tackle the John Muir trail; all 211 miles of it.  With the grueling nature of this trail we at Outside San Diego decided to send along a little gear with these guys to see how it held up to the abuse heaped upon it during the grueling almost month long hike.

One of our testers brought along a couple of pairs of Darn Tough Vermont Merino wool hiking socks.  In my opinion wool is one of the best ways to go when you are putting a bunch of miles on the trail over multiple days.  Merino wool does not stink up a quickly as many synthetics I have used, and they are as comfortable as anything on the market. They wick like no other fabric,  and tend to be pretty durable.

The Darn Tough lived up to their moniker and remained tough on the trail.  While they did not make it through to the end of the trail for reasons unrelated to the socks, they were ready to take on much more, and continue to pull hiking duty on a regular basis.  While these are not the fanciest sock on the market, they are good quality well cushioned socks that have all the right technology to function just as they were intended; as hiking socks.