Do you think the grid actually helped or just wasted your time on that dashboard?

Is it really that serious though? People pull inspiration from all kinds of real world stuff all the time, movies, books, news articles. It's fiction, nobody's saying the flood was caused by a dnd villain.

Grabbed a couple of the coated and uncoated swatch books from amazon last year and they've been a lifesaver for that exact reason, so I'm totally with you @simon_chen.

Totally agree with you on this. I did the HST last summer and it was the perfect escape from the crowds. The permit system really does make it so much easier to just go without the whole months long planning nightmare. That section after Bearpaw is tough no doubt, but the solitude makes it worth every step. I skipped the JMT this year to try the Rae Lakes Loop and honestly it was a smart move. The peace and quiet out there is hard to beat, you actually feel like you have the trail to yourself.

oh man i feel this so much. what finally clicked for me was picking one of those old ideas and spending just 10 minutes on it, no pressure to finish. turns out most of them were missing just one tiny part i had figured out years later. now i have a folder called "sprouts" instead of "graveyard" and it honestly makes me way less scared to dig through it. sometimes just looking at an old sketch with fresh eyes is enough to finish the whole thing in like an afternoon.