The Trail Trial: Wigwam Socks Edition

I used to run long races. Forty-eight of them between 2011 and 2021, most on Wisconsin trails, the Kettle Moraine 100 five times. I lived in Greenbush in those years, and the northern Kettle Moraine was my backyard. My last finish was in 2021. I am fifty now, and this weekend I am not running. I am walking.

Friday around six I start at Glenbeulah and walk the Ice Age Trail south to Mauthe Lake. That is about twenty-two miles, most of it in the dark, with a lot of up and down, because that is what a moraine is. I might sleep at Mauthe Lake. I might not. Then I walk back the same way and get a look at Forest Lake, Crooked Lake and Butler Lake, which I will have walked right by in the dark. Forty-four miles, give or take a wrong turn, in one pair of socks.

The socks are Wigwam's Alpaca Ultra Mid-Crew, baby alpaca in the blend by the tag, and they went on our shelf this week. That is the reason for the walk. Wigwam is the mill in Sheboygan that has been knitting socks since 1905. Now that it is on the shelf, I ought to know what it does at mile thirty. So I will check my feet along the way and say how they are, and at the end I will tell you what I think of the socks, whichever way it goes. I am calling it the Trail Trial, and this is the Wigwam socks edition.

You can follow along. There is a map with me on it, ten minutes behind on purpose, and my photos, on the same delay. Messages left on the page come to me on the trail, and I will read them, some of them at two in the morning. If you would rather hear it by email, there are two notes on offer: one when I start, and one at the finish with the verdict. Follow the walk.

I will need a headlamp, and a pair of legs that aren't fifty years old.