Either tough or stupid, and most likely a mixture of both, we finally reached flatter terrain.
That sounds familiar.
I enjoyed your breakdown of the mapping. I've read surveyor descriptions on title reports to decipher property easements and it's a tough translation.
Andy, thanks for checking in! Yup, just another adventure.
Back when we did what we called the "fun with Monte & Julie" weekends teaching land navigation in the field, we'd intentionally walk the class by a "K tag" or land survey poster and wait for someone to ask the question -"What's this?" It is so much fun bringing this stuff alive to people.
Historic USFS trivia - the "Forest Location Poster" the square metal tag nailed to a tree with a township depicted and a nail placed at its location, is often called a "K tag". Why? Early rangers had a list of supplies they were required to carry. Instead of numerically, the items were listed by alphabet. The item on the list at K was the forest location poster. So it became a "K tag" and most have long forgotten why.