if I don't think ill get wet i keep them on. if I think i may get wet i use my crocs
I have some light weight (full strap) sandals, I strap them to outside of my pack. I lost count of the 'I told ya so's' warning barefoot travelers about random bits of surprise broken glass hiding out there.
Thorns, splinters, stubbed toes.. Injuries to your feet are a bit more dangerous. Harder to keep clean. Every step there after can be a constant reminder. Wet shoes are not a good thing but infected or injured feet are worse.
I like sandals over rubberized shoes for days I have nothing but dirty sweat soaked socks of varying degrees. Good for airing the feet out.
I keep my shoes and socks on. Getting my feet wet is annoying, but after hiking on a bit I can change to a dry pair of socks if I need to. Sometimes I have found that there are multiple water crossings close together, so I usually wait for some significant uphill before thinking about drying off my feet.
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Formerly uhfox
Springer to Bear Mountain Inn, NY
N Adams, MA to Clarendon VT
Franconia Notch to Crawford Notch
I said this before in other posts---
THE ADVANTAGES OF GORETEX BOOTS
Okay, let's reason it out. 85% of all creek crossings in the Southeast mountains of TN, Georgia, NC and VA are easy fords between 1 to 6 inches deep and so whatever you are wearing will sink to that depth in order to do a ford or to rock hop. Try these little crossings in fabric boots or trail runners and POW you've just saturated your socks---not good on the first day of a 21 day winter trip. A good boot with a GTX liner is able to pull 6 inch deep wadings with no leaks, and of course you don't stand in the water for 20 minutes. Fabric boots soak in water like a canvas tennis shoe and so the high need for an above ankle GTX boot.
This is most relevant to winter backpacking. Otherwise, if it's warm you could stay in your running shoes or whatever else you use for backpacking EXCEPT boots as the water weight in wet boots is heavy and they take forever to dry out.
In the winter it's critical to keep your socks and boots as dry as possible for as long as possible. Otherwise they freeze solid at night.
The solution is to have wading shoes like crocs for deep creeks when it's 20F or god forbid 0F. For 5 minutes of hellish pain you keep dry socks and boots for the duration, unless . . . . . You're hiking in wet snow. Here again, in wet snow up to 10 inches deep, a good goretex boot will stay dry and keep your socks dry. There are some backpacking boots out there which are as dry as Baffin or Sorel packboots without the bulkiness or impeded clunky hiking.
The real test in winter is wearing crocs on a long creek trail with numerous crossings, like the Jacks or the Slickrock or the Conasauga or Snowbird Creek. It's 10F, there's some snow on the ground, you have 12+ crossings spaced a quarter mile apart. Now have fun. You will seriously consider buying and wearing neoprene socks after such a trip.
Last edited by Tipi Walter; 03-13-2016 at 12:26.
Quite possibly the best solution I've heard in a while. Thank you.Originally Posted by garlic08
I crossed the HMW fords barefoot the first time through. A bit tricky but I made it. That was back in the days of leather boots so I wasn't about to get them wet. Second time, years later, I just walked across in my trail runners and let them dry out while walking the next few miles.
Not too many other places I can recall where that was necessary.
I like dry shoes and socks so I normally bring some cheap flip flops with meI know I risk cutting my feet up but I've grown up fly fishing and using this method and haven't had too many problems, I wonder if anyone has tried using felt on the bottom of some crocs or flip flops? That will surely keep you from slipping on algae covered rocks.
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Hi, i think this might help you
Here are some few options
- Change your route or find a dry crossing up/down stream.
- Barefoot (Pros: keep shoes/socks dry. Cons: time consuming and can injure your feet on rocks)
- Change of shoes – Crocs, Teva style sandals, Scuba Booties, Volleys (Pros: keep shoes/socks dry, give feet some protection from rocks. Cons: time consuming unless you can continue in these shoes for a large part of day depending on terrain, additional item to carry.)
- Don’t worry about it – just walk on through (Pros: fast, especially good for multiple crossings, protect your feet, nothing extra to carry. Cons: Your feet are wet – suck it up Princess!
Full article : http://lotsafreshair.com/2012/11/02/...with-wet-feet/
I bought a pair of aqua socks for those situations...light weight, and can be used as camp shoes too...
Have not hiked the AT but I used to go barefoot but nicked my feet up a few times. Now I carry some crocs as camp shoes and I use them. They stay on, they float, and they dry quickly. Fit my needs and worth the weight.
If it's not that intense or long of a crossing, I just use whatever light sandals I brought for camp. A lot of my hiking is in places where it's wet, and soaking your boots all the time is not ideal. I just go slowly... it's not like I'm going to drill some rock with my toe.
But if the water is deep/intense or a very long crossing, I will wear my shoes for safety. Or if my feet are already soaked from deep mud or other crossings... then obviously I just keep on trucking through them!
I have also used just socks through smaller crossings, because socks grip a lot better than bare feet on rocks. then I just throw them on my pack to dry and for the next crossing
take off shoes, remove socks and insoles, ford wearing shoes...
This is an even numbered yr so I would not take my footwear off to cross streams on the AT. Next yr, an odd numbered yr, I will take my shoes off on the AT at every water crossing. Where the rules become ambiguous is on Dec 31.
are we forgetting leap year?..
Going barefoot is nuts, even in non rocky streams. I used to use Crocs but found a knockoff on Amazon that works better. The fit is more snug and the strap actually grips your heel. Crocs tended to slip off in a swift current. The name of the item is Sunville Men's Perforated Garden Clog and, the best part is, they only cost nine bucks.
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It depends on what "footwear" means to you. Some footwear will dry quickly. Some will not.
It depends on the temperature. In summer it doesn't much matter - footwear will dry much faster and your feet won't freeze even if they are soggy.
It depends on the current of the stream. A faster and deeper current makes slipping more likely.
It depends on how much weight you're carrying (including body weight). Much as I enjoy walking around barefoot, I'm quite hesitant to do so with a 50+lb pack.
It depends on the toughness of your feet. Some have hiked the entire AT barefoot - if your feet are conditioned to walking around without shoes in general, you will be fine fording barefoot. If you have never walked around in nature outside of cushy socks and thick boots, it's a bad idea.
There is a learning curve to walking barefoot, which involves having more awareness of the ground and transferring weight between feet more carefully than you would clomping around in heavy boots. The same learning curve is there with any more minimal footwear like trail runners, just to a lesser degree. If you don't want to think about it, just get a pair of heavy boots and rest assured that you'll be well-protected. But with practice, you can be agile with minimal footwear or barefoot, with very low likelihood of injury, and less likelihood of slipping/falling than with boots as you are walking more attentively.
I have done all of my non-winter hiking so far either barefoot or with Vibram Fivefingers (Trek Ascent LR). However I have a pair of Zamberlan leather & gore-tex boots that I will be taking with me on the trail. Will I end up wearing them? Who knows! But I will take them anyways, along with the Fivefingers. I have concern about how long a pair of Fivefingers can last when hiking a lot of miles, or that would be all I'd take, and they are light enough that I could carry an extra pair without much thought...I just don't want to burn through 10 pairs or something ridiculous on the trail. I also have only hiked on relatively easy portions of the AT so want to be prepared for rougher terrain, particularly since I'll be starting in Maine. However my plan is to try hiking barefoot wherever terrain is easy, at least a couple miles daily to toughen my feet. My next choice will be the Fivefingers. If terrain is rough or the Fivefingers otherwise prove insufficient, I will switch to the boots. When fording rivers, my preference is to do it barefoot - feeling the difficult-to-see riverbed is very helpful in my opinion. However I'll have my Fivefingers out of my pack and hanging somewhere easily reached, so if I feel it is needed, I can slip them on, even midstream if need be. They dry quickly and I wouldn't wear socks while in the water, and I'd take them off as soon as I was back on dry land. I would never wear my boots into the water unless it was so shallow it wouldn't get into the boots.
Last edited by Casey & Gina; 03-30-2016 at 11:38.
I do a lot of barefoot walking here, and would feel way more comfortable to cross streams barefoot than in flipflops, crocs or similar.
I always take my socks off and put my trail runners back on. Its often too slippery going bare foot. Unless you are wearing gore tex shoes your shoes will dry fairly quickly just due to walking
Almost every time I got completely soaked sport shoes and hiked them dry they started to develope a terrible odor I could not get rid of by any means any more.
Not sure how you guys handle this? (might as well be a separate thread here).
www.xeroshoes.com Great barefoot feel, seriously secure. Camp shoe, shower shoe, river shoe and recovery from boots by going barefoot in the evenings.
1/3 the weight (5.6 oz pr. size 9) of Heavy sandals, i.e. Chacos, Tevas, Keens? Pack flat, or roll up.
"You don't have to think fast if you move slow" Red Green
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