Quote Originally Posted by Trek420 View Post
I see, Duofold is the entry drug, then it's all downhill from there till I hit bottom only to be found in a gutter somewhere having lost my house, family and job all in search of more and better wool.
That's the beauty of wool. You can be homeless in a gutter in rain and snow and 40 mph winds, but you'll still be warm.

My name is DebW, and my wool addiction started in the winter of 1974-75 before the advent of synthetic fabrics. If you wanted to winter hike then, you needed wool. And being a poor student, my winter hiking wardrobe consisted of navy surplus wool pants (luckily I got the ones with the zipper instead of the 13 buttons), two army surplus wool shirts, wool balaclava, and ragg wool socks. When I could afford it, I bought some Stil-longs long underwear pants - wonderful quality soft wool. Also owned wool fishnet long underwear. My fav woolies ever are boiled-wool Dachstein mittens - almost completely windproof. For biking there was ProTogs, of which I still have a long-sleeved T-shirt with only a few moth holes. Currently all my socks are Smartwool. I own Smartwool boxers, two long-sleeved wool bike jerseys, and I have a collection of wool shirts from Goodwill, one a Pendleton. Too cheap to buy Smartwool shirts for now.

Quote Originally Posted by Lisa S.H.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of wool as we understood it.
Yes, I owe a lot to wool. Here's the story of how wool saved my life (OK, I'm exaggerating but only a little). The first day of a winter overnight hike we had to cross a stream about 30 yards wide. There were step stones maybe only a little underwater and it wasn't too icy. I was standing a little ways from shore helping other people across, then handed my camera to someone and started across myself. Slipped on a rock, lost my balance, and sat in the water. Stood up quickly but was wet from the waist down. Crossed the stream. Took off boots, poured out water, squeezed out socks, put socks and boots back on. Boots were all rubber (Army K-boots) with sealed insulation, so feet were fine. Continued hiking in wet wool pants with polypro longjohns underneath, temp maybe 25F. Within 10 minutes the polypro felt dry and warm. The wool pants continued to keep me warm but they held water and got somewhat frozen, providing good wind protection. At camp I removed the wool pants, with longjohns still dry underneath. Put on fuzzy camp pants and windpants and was happy. Left the wool pants hanging in a tree over night. The funny thing was, they froze stiff in a really funny position and I couldn't get them on the next day. I had to beat them against a tree to make them fit into my pack. I hiked that day in longjohns and windpants, which was quite fine.