"Bad for hiking, AWESOME for rivers. " - Review of KEEN Venice H2 Sandal - Women's

So far i've tried these sandals on a few short hikes, an overnight backpack trip through a gulch that requires walking in an average of 5 cm of water, and on a couple river trips. For general hiking, i do NOT like them. Little rocks get in there and they can't get out because of the toe protection and I would have to stop and take them off all the time to remove the rocks (i've tried to work out a few methods to shake them out, but most of the time you need to stop to extract them). I had the same problem in the gulch hike, and ended up hiking barefoot most of the time in the water when the surface was mostly sand and small rocks, although for areas that required hiking around waterfalls on slickrock, i felt the traction was pretty good. For rivers they are, of course, GREAT! Used them on the green river, and two portions of the payette river. We dumped our boat on one occasion and i was never fearful for my toes/feet and walking through the rocky river bed whenever we were launching, or stopping for lunch, or whatever, was never a problem, in fact you can move fast with more confidence (than in open toe sandals) in times when you need to get to shore in a hurry. i'm rating them at 4 because i'd give them a 1 or 2 for hiking and a 5 for river use and i know they are mostly intended for river use, but they've been hyped up a lot for multi use on trails (make sure your trails are ultra smoooooth or paved and they might be fine).
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