>>1134837Different strategies for different situations...
In warm, dry weather, with access to sunlight, if I'm wearing mesh-top boots or hiking shoes, I just walk through streams because those kinds of boots dry out pretty quickly from just waking in them.
>Example: the Rocky Mountains in the summertime.If the stream is shallow and there is a stepping stone "bridge," I'll take great pains to hop from stone to stone, and keep my feet dry. Usually, other hikers will have set up cobble size stepping stones at these kinds of shallow crossings, so it's almost always possible to keep your shoes dry by using those. Most stream crossings are cross-able like this.
>Example: >>1134883If the stream is too deep to hop and the weather is too shady or cool to expect my boots to dry as I'm walking down the trail, then I will switch to a pair of stream-crossing shoes (I use Crocs because they're really light), which I wear to cross the stream. They double as camp shoes, so it's not totally dead weight. You do have to know that these streams exist on your route, and plan to bring stream crossing shoes, but usually it's obvious on a map that a creek will be this big from the size and width of the valley around it, and notes in a trip report you read online could tip you off that there is no bridge.
>Example: See pic related.>>1134946>Take your boots and socks off, roll up your pants and walk.I don't recommend crossing a stream barefoot unless you are absolutely and positively certain to encounter only a mud or sand bottom, and even then, I wouldn't do it. It's way too easy to cut the bottom of one of your feet on a sharp rock, and the consequences of doing that are way too severe - you could get an infection and be unable to continue to the trailhead. Just not worth it to me. I'd much rather hike in soggy boots than risk a cut on my feet.
