Re: Faster Stream Crossings?

I lead high school students in eleven-day winter trips through the Ventana Wilderness where we frequently cross swollen streams. We used to require changing from hiking boots to river shoes or closed-toe athletic shoes, but the time to do multiple changes was cutting into the short daylight hiking days, so this year most or us just hiked across in boots and gaiters and sucked up the squelchy feeling until our hiking had dried out our boots a bit. On longer crossings, we would empty out our boots before continuing to hike. It is clearly hard on the boots, but we had less trouble with blisters than normal and only a couple of the kids had issues with trench foot, all of them would recover each night with dry socks, foot powder and plenty of hydration. I believe that NOLS uses this technique exclusively.