Smokies Stream Crossings

How deep?

Up to knee high. I have almost always stuck to the AT in the winter and/or trails that happened to have bridges so it’s not something I’ve had to figure out up to this point.

Timmermade describes DCF Water Crossing Socks. He says they are easy to make: just make a tube. They are thin enough to conform to your foot.

Wiggy’s makes 15 oz waders, designed for river crossings.

EDIT: These plastic socks are light and thick. The pictures show them used as overshoes, which might be slippery and fragile. As waterproof socks, however, they are great.

Somebody will mention Randy Sun and SealSkinz. I like SealSkinz a lot, but more to make a non-waterproof shoe water resistant, rather than crossing streams. Randy Sun is similar tech, but the cut is more narrow and don’t fit my wide feet well. Both are stretchy, though. The knee-high socks might work for you, depending on your answer to Philip’s question.

I will give those both a look. It seems that hurricane Helene washed out a lot of areas and created more crossings so it’s something I’ll be dealing with enough to justify getting some gear.

The Wiggy’s look interesting.  I’d be curious how they hold up to rocks and such.
Back in the ‘80’s  I hiked the Eagle Creek trail (SMNP)…not knowing the trail crossed that creek dozens of times…w/o bridges.  Not too fun at the time (December) and is still burned into my memory.  :-o

One of the park marine biologists told my fly-fishing group he counted 23 crossings on that trail so that hasn’t changed. I may try getting there up and over from cades cove to avoid that sometime, I’ve already reached hazel creek that way though it was difficult, and I wouldn’t want to be carrying fishing gear.

How about the z-pack camp slippers – if just for water crossing. 2-3 oz for the pair? . Would mostly protect the pads of your feet. Might want to rig them with an extra lace around the mid foot for the crossings. I used a pair 8 oz or so off brand amazon water shoes in Denali – that was awesome since the glacier water was so full of sediment and cold cold cold i was happy to take the time so swap out of my shoes for those crossings.

Most of the worst wading creeks are on the NC side, Eagle and Forney being the worst.  When I did Eagle in late November (with snow on the ground) I carried a dedicated pair of wading shoes and then just carried them the rest of the trip.

With dozens of crossings, that sounds challenging because changing footwear every time would be incredibly tedious. I don’t suppose that the old trash compactor bag trick would work.

I’ve used trash compactor bags as UL “waders”. They’re great as long as there’s no chance of the water being deeper than the bag. If the bag fills with water, then it could be a problem, especially if the water is moving with any speed. But for shallow water and swamps, they’re great.

I rolled and taped them to roughly the right size, and used a shock cord with cord lock to secure them.

These bags are about the right size without any tinkering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1BSLBDQ

My worst winter crossings happened on a 24 day trip in January during the Polar Vortex of 2014.  My worst night was -8F and on Day 13 of the trip I packed up and had to cross two small creeks at OF in crocs and barefeet and it was gangrene cold.  Thankfully the crossings were not deep and only mid calf—better cold feet than frozen boots and socks.  See pic across Brookshire Creek—

I pulled an 18 day trip in Snowbird wilderness and had 12 fords over Snowbird Creek at around 15F and just stayed in my crocs between crossings—which sucked because deep snow got inside the crocs—painful.  It got so bad I had to change into boots and socks after each ford.  After that trip I researched Sealskinz etc but never bit the bullet—just crocked up and kept moving.  There are solutions but they are heavy—like those Neos winter overboots etc.  I have yet to try neoprene socks which actually might keep your feet warm in crocs.  Any reviews??

I used neoprene socks a lot packrafting. A good pair was comfortable enough to hike in for a few miles. Slow to dry but better then wool socks. I kept them on if there were lots of creek crossings.

A concern in winter might be freezing because of slower dry time.

Kokatat Hydrus 3.0 Launch Socks

Terran—thanks for the link.  I don’t want to keep my feet dry in the winter—I want to keep them warm in bare feet when crossing.  Do the Hydrus do that?

I had a Hyrus dry suit, it seemed to work well considering I was pretty rough on it. I can’t imagine those over socks would not be considerably warmer then neoprene socks and you could dry them a lot quicker. I might actually get a pair some day.

They keep your socks dry. I haven’t pushed them to their limit. I’m pretty sure there’s a point where they’d wet out. They’re designed for launching. Like a dry suit meant for relatively brief encounters. Taller, more stable and secure than a bread bag. For multiple crossings, I would consider redundancy by using a breadbag over them or neoprene socks or both.