Yeah.OM,.I really don't have that luxury in the mountains where I travel,mostly, even on top you'll likely have your view obstructed.
On well marked or well traveled paths, especially places I'm intimately familiar with, I may never pull mine out. But fog, dense trees, etc..I always have one. And if I'm soloing, which is most of the time, especially in unfamiliar terrain, I like to stop and take a reading every so often. It's a lot more fun to come out 10 to 20 yards from your target, than to have to walk back down a trail or road for a mile or five, because I was winging it and over shot my way point here or there.

A lot of what I travel through is so dense that you can't look at your topo, drop perpendiculars, and trace out the ridge lines, and sight in on exactly the landmark your looking for. In this type of terrain, one might be lucky to look through the rough, and see 10 or 12 feet, straight ahead.

Oh well, getting off topic, was just curious what kind of compass people here liked to carry, and who uses magnetic dampening like the military cammenga's that I learned on, or the fluid dampened, like the Silva Ranger CL, or similiar that I use now, and personally like much better.

J.