>>298852>most are so easy to navigate you only need to take a quick look at a map before leaving to find your way.Yeah, I don't think so.
Pic related is a 24 mile section of a longer (~60 mile) hike I did a couple years ago. There is no fucking way someone is just going to "take a quick look at a map before leaving" to be able to know where the fuck they are anywhere on this trail.
Can you just follow the trail markers and be content with being surprised by every twist and bend in the route? Sure, maybe. Until you get to a section where loggers have been through and clear-cut all the trees that had the trail blazes on them and erosion has obscured the trail. Or, until it starts raining and one of the nearby rivers floods, forcing you to re-route due to the trail being covered in water and you have to find where the trail picks up again after walking around a flooded swamp. Or, until you get to a creek-bottom where there are a lot of ATV trails that totally obscure the footpath, and it's your own best guess which of them is the trail you are supposed to follow. Even with a map and compass, it's possible to lose the trail in these situations, but without a map and compass, it would be needlessly hard, if not impossible, to find it again.
This isn't exactly the "deep" wilderness of Alaska. It's Missouri. Even if you get lost, you can generally hike out a day or two, and end up in someone's back yard, or on a road. It's just a question of whether you want to end your trip early and unexpectedly because you idiotically thought you were superman who could navigate without a map & compass, or whether you want to just be prepared and have a good trip.
