[namdnay]

Believe me, hiking the alpine GRs without a map is asking for trouble. The trails are very well maintained but you need to plan your days, you don’t want to be tired out at 4pm in the middle of a very rocky portion. And if you were to hit fog or heavy rain, a map can be a lifesaver.

I’m pretty sure that until the 21st century, nearly everyone doing the gr5 for example would have bought a map

[lisp-pornstar]

Well, you picked up one of the most difficult GR, situated in one of the most lethal landscape, with one of the worst weather, of france. That's not the fairest example, because that's not representative of the relative triviality of most of GRs. (Even "difficult" ones seems trivial compared to GR5.