I bought these shoes because of the rating and how everyone raves that they are lightweight, durable, and the best water shoe they have ever tried. This past weekend, I put them to the test. I do a lot of backpacking and hiking - river crossings happen frequently and can be extremely shallow, to extremely deep. So I have been looking for a shoe that is lightweight to carry in my pack - this shoe passes that test indefinitely. Now as far as durability, it held up really well when we crossed a raging river as well. You can still feel the stabs and jabs on the bottom from the river rocks, but I felt steady and didn't have trouble holding myself up as we made the crossing.

These were also worn hiking - which I know isn't the best shoe to do this in, but I wanted to again test the durability of this water shoe against my needs and try to be as cost effective as possible and not buy the $100+ pair of merrils or whatever. They actually performed well on the trails, better than I expected, honestly. I wouldn't recommend it for lengthy periods of time for fear of the shoe falling apart, but they did hold up really well.

I think overall I'm going to keep these shoes and use them for backpacking as I stated earlier, they are lightweight and I LOVE that feature especially when it comes to backpacking. But considering the river crossings I plan to do in the future... I may need to move on to something just a bit better...  but I will hold on to these and give them all I have. The price is wonderful for the quality so far, in my opinion.