Laughed at this because I did the exact same thing on my section hike a few years back. I remember reading that same number and realizing I could not recall a single blaze from the entire week before. You just get into a rhythm following the trail and the footprints and suddenly you have walked ten miles without really seeing anything. There is something nice about that though, trusting the path instead of checking every tree. The blazes are there for when you need them, and mostly you do not.

The plastic welder sitting in a box for 6 months hits home, I did the same thing with a heat gun on some cracked interior trim and kicked myself after. Now I just grab it first instead of fighting with glue and clamps for an hour.

How does that even work when the photos don't show half the damage? A guy I know had a tree hit his roof last year and the adjuster wrote the whole thing from three cell phone pics the homeowner took. Missed the cracked rafter and the water damage in the attic, so my buddy ended up fighting them for months to get it fixed right. He said the estimate was off by like eight grand and he had to hire his own guy just to prove what was actually wrong. By the time it got sorted out the roof leaked every time it rained and he was out a ton of money up front. That kind of stuff is exactly why guys in the field don't trust these desk estimates.