I made the run over to Northfield VT to Cabot Hosiery Mills annual factory sale this past Saturday. Its a unique VT tradition, thousands of folks visit the factory to buy seconds, irregular and I suspect overstocks of Darn Tuff socks for around $8 to $11 a pair (10% less if you buy $100 worth). The event is always the two first weekends of VT deer hunting season, so last weekend was the first weekend and next weekend Nov 23rd and 24th is the last. The other thing unusual about the sale is they make no attempt to advertise it on social media, its mostly word of mouth and maybe some mentions on the radio. Its strictly walk up, no online sales. They just clear a space in their warehouse delineated by piles of boxes and then let so many folks in at time to dig through the inventory that is put out on large tables and reloaded with more socks whenever the piles get low. Most of the socks are marked as seconds meaning no lifetime guarantee but my experience has been that the "defects" generally do not impact the life of the sock. Darn Tuff makes a lot of cold weather socks for the US military. For those familiar with the term ECWCS they supply ECWCS socks as well as other varieties. They are hard to beat for cold weather and are a 60 to 70% merino blend. Seconds go for 3 pairs for $18 with 6 pairs going for $28. Great for winter hiking.

They do have a large warming tent outside the door but given the number of folks who attend there is usually a line outside the tent outdoors. I got there early right when the door opened so I got in the warming tent but when I left at around 9:30 there were several hundred folks in line outside the tent. Given its outdoors in VT, cold weather gear is a must while standing in line. Its an interesting crowd of mostly outdoor sports fans of all types with folks from all over New England but definitely the majority are Vermonters. For VT its actually not hard to get to as its right off I89.

I usually go every 2 or 3 years and stock up on inventory. I usually give away a few. Even if they were "firsts" I wouldn't normally return socks that are just plain worn out so I don't mind the lack of lifetime warrantee.