Detect When Player Is In Particles Without Raycasting

I need to be able to detect when the player walks through particles emitted by a particle system. The particles are left along the ground and should be able to be walked through which would affect the player’s stats. I would prefer to do this without raycasting down and without using particle colliders if it is possible. Thanks in advance for your help.

How many particles there will usually be?

maybe could get closest particle with something like this,

then check if that closest particle is inside the feet bounding box… (or move trigger to that closest point and check it it collides with feet)

I’ll definitely give it a try! Thanks!