> At the end of day two and three I basically had a stump of clotted wet mud
Ugh! You are describing the backpacking of my youth. A lot of unpleasant memories. How's about a nice book in the living room :-) I have been spoiled in California.
My experience is that there is no good answer. I tried a number of things and nothing worked really great. I don't mind wet feet so long as they stay warm… but I really don't like mud getting through… too often I ended up with minor foot issues becoming infected so I would want some sort of barrier to stop the mud before it hit my skin.
Of the shoes I have, I would most likely switch to my inov-8 390s… though I am not sure if the tread would be sufficently agressive… that would depend on what kind of mud you have. In the very clay like mud I was used to I am not sure if the lugs would shed the mud enough to have good traction. I would not use my typical trail runners because they would get stuck in the mud and my foot would pop out at just the wrong time.
Inside the roclite 390s I would most likely wear a pair of rbh vapr socks with a breadsack over them and gaitors to keep any mud that got over the top of the 390s (which will happen in some particularly deep hole that I would find within the first few minutes) from getting embedded in the socks outer layer. The other option I would think about would be standard toe socks inside some rocky goretex socks. It would depend on how warm I thought I would be running. Given the rest of the conditions though, sounds like I would go with the vapr socks.
–Mark
