“…but I'm looking for lighter options. For those who have had success just ploughing through without stopping or changing socks, what kind of socks do you wear?”

Thanks Heber and Ecrow for the kind words. When you have a piece of Heaven, you want to share it .

I’m a Teva TeraFi-2 sandal backpacker and ford streams and rivers all the time with sock and sandal. It actually feels very nice. I love open toe sandals. I just change my socks once/day. My booted backpacking buddies change once/hour in high humidity to minimize blisters. I wear thick coolmax socks during 3-season. I find them at Walmart--- Dickies have been working great. They provide nice cushion and dry fast.

This teva sandal provides great traction on wet granite rock, even at sharp angles. And they continue to amaze me as I just summited Mt. Timpanogos in UT which required a lot of scree and snow scrambling (I got off the trail). I was impressed with a few people doing this summit in their chacos. I feel Teva’s ‘spider rubber’ has a better grab than most hiking footwear out there.

Just make sure the sandal is strapped tight when you backpack. Then loosen it when stopped. It then feels like a slipper .

When the temperature gets around 25-35F, I then use a different strategy for fording rivers.

Sprintaquatics will probably work. However, when your ankle is turning on the rocks, it helps to have the footwear snug-tight in that water which I can’t see happening with sprintaquatics nylon mesh shoe.
Also, if you’re with a partner or group, I just find changing footwear really slows down the group.

Blisters are caused by heat, moisture, and friction. Minimize one of them to minimize blisters. Try to minimize two of them to eliminate blisters.

-Barry