As we said in the Marines, sometimes all you can do is embrace the suck. It's good for the soul. =)

I do question why anyone ever goes anywhere in the outdoors without a properly scaled USGS topo map and a decent compass. With a map, even without a compass, if you can see terrain features you can roughly establish your location by terrain association. With a compass, you can locate yourself within a few meters.

Not even an actual dedicated GPS on the trip, just an app on a phone?