I'm a bigger guy, my pack now is about 40-45 pounds and it's still light to me, and I have a place to go, it's my buddy's grandpa, he's an old war vet and a gun nut so we plan to go there. He lives like 12 miles away from town. And there's No one around him for miles in any direction
If you look at history, before world war 2 the French were working on something called the Maginot Line. Those people were still in the mind set that world war 2 was going to be fought the same way as world war 1.
The problem was that the technology had changed.
Barriers and obstacles were easily flown over and traversed.
The place was obsolete even before it was ever completed.
The funny thing was, the Germans had lot's of resources AND little time and they wasted their precious resources building the line.
When the Americans attacked at Normandy, they found that the guns were never installed and the bunkers were mostly empty.
12 miles - a man can walk that far if they want to, especially if they are hungry!
Your are thinking in very small terms.
12 miles back into the mountains, unless you really peeved someone off, no one would bother to walk back in to get one or two people...
If a bomb was dropped and some type of chemical agent was released, 12 miles isn't very far either!