To liner or not to liner?

Wearing sock liners with your thicker socks and hiking boots are a matter of personal preference, and not everyone prefers to wear them. Sock liners are mainly recommended as a preventive measure to getting blisters. The problem I have found with sock liners is that it is challenging to find the right thickness sock to go with the right thinness of liner. If the end result of 2 socks is that they are too fat for your boot, well, you will get blisters anyway.

I used to be an avid sock liner wearer - I had the right weight wool sock and the right weight liner and it was beautiful. But those socks got holes, and they stopped manufacturing them to buy new ones. I have tried numerous sock combinations with and without liners and came to the conclusion that now, liners made my feet more prone to blisters.

I thought I had my system figured out: I was one of those people for whom liners did not work- until I went backpacking in Havasu Canyon last week. My no-liner system failed me and I got huge blisters. After 3 days in the Canyon, hiking mostly in Chaco sandals and soaking my feet in cool water, the blisters diminished. Time came to backpack out (10 miles) and I went back and forth on whether to wear the liners on the way out. But they really made my boots tight and I worried I would get blisters in new areas. So I decided to go just with hiking socks again. 2 miles into it my feet were killing me. I stopped, put on mole skin and my sock liners. I hiked the remaining 8 miles, got no new blisters and the ones I had got no worse. I was amazed. I think my feet were just too hot and needed the liner as both a cooling effect and to reduce the friction.

Whatever the reason - it worked. Now, not only do I advocate testing whether or not sock liners work for you, but test whether they work for you in different climates, on different hikes, different days. I am now a sometimes sock liner wearer.