Giardia are carried by humans and animals and can contaminate water supplies. A reliable treatment for giardia is to boil water for one minute. Additional information relative to beach hiking is available from coastal ranger stations and the visitor centers in the park. May. They become neither friendly nor familiar to the unsuspecting backcountry user. The notoriously high precipitation swells rivers and creeks to many times their normal size until even the smallest creek crossing can become difficult or dangerous to cross.
Footbridges often wash out.
Standing water can be knee deep for long stretches. They can drop lower but are even more cumbersome in the given range because rain is still cold rain and not snow. The safest time to cross mountain streams is from sunrise to noon. After noon, melting snow water will increase flows until nightfall. In the High Country Naturally snow prevails.