Reader Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5

I've long been a fan of wool for cooler weather but this is the first wool garment I've been able to wear in really hot weather. Well made with a good fit. breathes well.

I honestly can't think of any way to improve it. One of the criticism of wool garments is that they take too long to dry but the microweight fabric is so thin that it dries just as fast as a Patagonia light weight base layer.

I give it a 5

Rating: 5 / 5

I just wore this shirt for 9 days straight, washing it without soap every other day and found little stink at the end. Wool has its own unique smell (which didn't mix well with a curry smell) but didn't smell like me at the end of the trip. For the lack of odor, you get a shirt that is slightly warmer and dries slightly slower than an engineered fabric. For me it's worth the trade off. It does breathe well, doesn't chaff, fit well, and didn't really pill. I'm going to get the L/S version. Anything heavier than microweight would be to heavy for summer even in the mountains.

Rating: 2 / 5

Sorry, but I have had poor luck with the 2 L/S Microweight shirts I purchased. I am not at all hard on things, and I can seldom wear anything out, but my first shirt developed a hole the size of a dime on the back after a 4-hour hike with a daypack (excellent trail, no brush). The second shirt I have worn on 8-10 dayhikes in similar conditions and I now have small holes in the sleeve and front. Neither shirt was dried in a machine. I have now switched to Icebreaker but haven't had a chance to use them. I understand from vendors that Smartwool is harder on their processing and generally of a lesser quality than either Icebreaker or Ibex. I give it a very generous 2.

Rating: 1 / 5

Update: I changed my rating from a 5/5 to a 1/5. Don't buy this piece of crap. I washed it in Woolite on the delicate cycle after wearing it for two days backpacking and the shirt started to fall apart. It developed a hole where I was wearing my backpack belt and there are several areas where the wool looks matted almost as if it is thinning out. These are areas that were up against my backpack (Osprey Atmos 50). This shirt is going back to REI for a full refund.

Original post:
I wore this for two days of backpacking where the highs were in the 60's and 70's and the lows in the 30's at night. I backpacked nearly 20 miles in the L/S shirt never taking it off. I even slept in it. This shirt was always comfortable and never itched. It kept me warm at night and cool during the day.

One other reason I liked this shirt is the no smell feature. Wearing just a synthetic L/S shirt on a long backpacking trip requires me to change it out because it just smells too bad. The Smartwool never smelled. I'm sold.

Edited by azhiker on 02/17/2007 23:07:59 MST.