Bridgedale Trailblaze Long - Desert Socks
[BUR-TBLS]

Although many of my friends wear and recommend Bridgedale socks, this is the first pair that I have actually tried for myself. The first thing that I noticed is that rather than a double skinned sock that I usually opt for as a hiking sock this was a single skinned woollen type sock that had different thicknesses of zoned padding where the usual hotspots are on your feet, including an extended dorsal pad along the top of your foot to pad the area where the laces are on your boots. In addition to the padding these socks also have mesh venting panels along the sides and underside of the foot to help the foot remain cool and comfortable .

The socks are a modern hybrid sock of merino wool (a very fine soft wool), and man-made fibres (Nylon, polypropylene and lycra) to give a good combination of fit, comfort and warmth and this also seems to work well with drying them after a dunking. After a days use, I soaked the socks under a tap, wrung them out the best that I could and then put them in my smock inside pocket for around an hour, although still a little damp, they were almost dry, and were bone dry the following morning after being draped over my Bergen overnight even though the weather was a little cold (but thankfully dry).

I wore these socks with a combination of two pairs of ankle boots and a pair of patrol boots and found that they worked well with all of them, but I think that they would be too short for a high leg boot as they didnt clear the patrol boots by much. The other thing that I noticed was that the extended dorsal pad was a little short for use with the patrol boots as it didnt come all of the way up the front of the sock, however this didnt make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. That said these socks really did work very well with both pairs of ankle boots (one leather steel toe cap and the other Goretex hiking boots). I clocked up around fifty miles over the weekends walking (a combination of tarmac road, chalk track and grass) and had no issues with hotspots let alone blisters, which isnt bad as I havent been out as much over the winter months as I would have liked due to the cold wet weather.

All in all, I was very impressed with these socks and not only will I continue to wear these going forward, I will join my friends in recommending them to others

Date Added: 07/10/2011 by Arrse Reviews