. . . many will just not put in the effort to learn the basic skills or carry a real map. They can get away with that on the Whitney main trail, but...
Amen. I once had a where-the-hell-am-I? discussion with a guy I ran across on-trail, and we were using his map for me to show him where we were standing and where he was going. He had his handy-dandy compass as well. What he didn't have was a clue what "declination" meant (this was in Washington state, where it means a
helluva lot). I don't think he was ever completely convinced about the concept. Reading contour lines was not a particular strength of his either. By the time we parted I wondered why he even bothered carrying a map and compass - it was just so much dead weight in this case.
For Whitney in summer, though, it's follow the herd. Very straightforward trail, with only a small slabby section above Mirror Lake to potentially confuse people. I did this trail the first time solo, with raging AMS on the descent. I had a lot of concerns on my mind at the time, but following the trail wasn't one of them. This is a very difficult trail to go off track for any significant distance.
