Great post Glenn.

I've been doing these exact kinds of trips here in the mid-west since I left California over 30 years ago.

For me, it's always been about finding a secluded super scenic spot and spending time there relaxing and exploring the area in detail and I've been able to do that in here to my hearts desire.

The few times, when I was young, that I hiked with others on a trail it seemed they had no interest in stopping to explore an interesting spot or go off trail and I always came back regretting I'd missed out on opportunities to go places everyone else was passing by.

I have had the most fun in my life here just meandering the "hills and hollows" off trail without a destination. I have been places here that I tell "ol timers" about and they tell me they've never been to or heard of. Old homesteads and hunting camps and springs that are mostly completely forgotten now but were the stomping grounds of generations that knew them intimately just 50 years ago.

I've camped all alone next to beautiful little streams and waterfalls and pools, that I know no one has been to in years, most of them not more than a 1/2 mile from popular trails and campsites. And it's the best thing ever. If people knew about some of those spots they'd be beating a trail to them, but they never go off the trails anymore and now almost no one knows about them.

Every now and then I run across a hidden campsite that is used. They'll have a fire ring and some rocks for sitting on and you can tell how often they're used and how long it's been since they were. Some of them haven't been used in years or decades, and others you can tell are used at least once every year and probably during hunting season.

Almost all of them are clean. I've seen very few where trash was left behind recently. But over the years since I've been here fewer and fewer backpackers or hikers go off trail, even a little way off trail. I haven't run into anyone off trail in over 10 years now. I see a lot of hikers on the trails, and I can hear them in the distance, especially at night talking around their campsites, but they almost never, ever, go off trail. Not even a little ways off trail.

I honestly don't know how they can resist it