Podcast 95 | Natural Fibers in Outdoor Performance Apparel

Doing some research (reading) for a just completed merino wool purchase, the knock on merino is still durability especially under pack straps according to the reviews. Another fairly new company has their merino a little thicker, but will it start affecting hot weather hiking temperature? Probably individual.. Some articles (mostly climber based) point out that merino still holds water vs synthetics, but most “merino” are blends.

Still feel the durability especially where a pack abrades against fabric should be addressed (but it won’t be).

I plan on using my second merino as a sleeping shirt to take advantage of its comfort range and only use for hiking in case of emergency.
Also just ordered some merino socks from a well-known company  and while socks must have nylon, it seems the nylon content is slowly going up %-wise.

I usually wear a layer of Great Pyrenees over any wool or fleece., I read it can be 80% warmer than sheep’s wool. I prefer the alpaca wool. I’ve been wearing bison wool socks for a few years. I have some (unfortunately discontinued) thin wool/silk blend socks for warm weather, otherwise I prefer synthetic.. I like a thin layer of wool for warmth. I can shrink it for a better fit. Synthetic fleece over that to deal with the elements better and to add loft to a hard shell.

The perils of dog ownership and wearing fleece. Great Pyrenees mix.

Cattle can overgraze as well if allowed to. You end up with an accumulation of parasites that affect cattle but the sheep can handle them. Sheep can go in where cattle have grazed. The pasture can be then overgrazed or cleared depending on how you look at it. While the cattlemen were following best practices and rotating fields, the sheepherders, who were a bit more desperate, would take advantage of the fallow pastures, thus giving sheep a bad reputation.

I really want to like merino base layers, but in my experience trying to use merino base layers from both montbell and smart wool, they fall apart quick- in the case of my montbell merino shirt, I bought it for a 4-day ski touring trip and after the trip I had holes on both shoulders. The smart wool layers held up a bit better but still not well. I have some costco poly base layers that I used intermittently for 5 years and regularly for another 5 years after that, and are still going strong. It’s hard for me to justify the premium price of merino layers and the increased frequency I’d need to replace them. If I could trust natural base layers would last the same way polyester ones do, I’d probably be willing to pay a premium to stink less and wear less plastic.

Funny enough, the exception to this experience is socks. My merino socks seem to last a lot longer than polyester ones, though that may be because poly socks I own are cheap ones from target. Regardless, the comfort (and minimal smell!) of wool socks has been an obvious improvement over synthetics for me.

I’m still not a fan of wearing clammy base layers, so I still lean towards wool (often with a fishnet layer underneath). Has anyone else been wearing wool historically and gone back to synthetics? Or vice-versa?

Synthetics for decades, starting with polypropylene over 40 years ago. Then moved to Capilene a few years later.

Around 15 years ago I switched to wool. And some merino/poly blends. Problem with these is they wear out too quickly. The blends worked better, but are hard to find. After five years of wearing out expensive merino, I went back to Capilene — better ROI — less junk going into landfills if that is a concern for people.

(above BPL Beartooth Merino Hoody in 2009). I really liked this, but it wore out fairly quickly.

Pretty rare for me to get a clammy feeling with Capilene, which is probably a mixture of my physiology (I don’t sweat as much as most people) and getting the right combination of layering to meet the conditions.