Around 20-25 years ago I was working at a religious retreat in Western North Carolina. I was working with a group called Centrifuge which the kids just love.
The preacher and another leader were maybe 20 years old. They both were in great physical condition, had charismatic personalities etc. One had just come back from Africa where his parents were missionaries and the other from a farm in Indiana.
One day they decided to take a trip to Catawba Falls. It was maybe a ten mile trip. I had been there many times and gave them written directions of which trails to stay on, which turns to make etc. This was in the Pisgah National Forest.
The next day they came in really scratched up, and I mean beat to heck. It turned out they had made it to the falls OK but climbed to the top then coming back got lost. They had a good compass and knew they just had to basically walk straight North. They made it but boy that is rough walking.
Very, very rough cross country off of trails. I had to keep it short, so I hinted at trails vs bushwhacking, but city folks really do not understand what it means to walk a mile on a road, a marked trail, and a compass course across constant deadfall. It’s like those civil war wooden barricades, I can’t remember the name, but they bored holes and drove sharpened timber through long planks in a series of X’s. That’s what it’s like, hiking through thick deadfall in a forest. Throw in cliffs, ravines, crevices, rapids, it’s pretty challenging country on foot! “Miles per day” is optimistic in some places. But a slow and careful woodsman can not only cross it (very slowly) but remain unseen at all times. Folks ask me what to do to get ready, I usually say, Find a hunter who wants to teach you how to hunt. Good hunters know what I’m talking about.