One issue with both digital and printed maps are missing details. I went on a scout hike in the Adirondacks last summer with an experienced guide whose day job was an instructor with the U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School. We had good printed topographical maps of the areas to the south of Tupper Lake in St. Lawrence county, and on rare occasions could get a one or two bars for phone maps.
However, on one 20-mile segment, we were really thrown off by unmarked and unmapped roads peeling off through the forest from mapped roads, created by logging companies and private landowners. In one case one of those unmarked roads proved to be a time-saving shortcut when we got lost, but at other times we had to backtrack when we realized we had taken the wrong branch.
The other really helpful map we encountered were marked snowmobile trails. Snowmobilers in rural parts of the state are very well organized, and have created a network of trails stretching from western NY to the Adirondacks in the northeast part of the state. Besides trail markers, they have erected trail maps at intersections showing trails at the county level, which were very helpful.
OpenStreetMap is generally very good at this, have you looked at whether the unmapped roads are already in there? Or do you remember the location, like, coordinates? As a contributor to the project I'm curious to take a look. (Though in the USA, OSM doesn't seem to be catching on as much as in the rest of the world; if you're doing stuff with the USA Army I guess odds are good that it's on continental USA and may not be in there either.)
USGS topo maps are often out of date, lacking trails or including long-vanished trails. Some still have data from 1972. The compass fiducial can be years out of date as well.
Still, they remain the gold standard and their actual geographic info (peaks and such) remains great except in some earthquake-prone areas.
However, on one 20-mile segment, we were really thrown off by unmarked and unmapped roads peeling off through the forest from mapped roads, created by logging companies and private landowners. In one case one of those unmarked roads proved to be a time-saving shortcut when we got lost, but at other times we had to backtrack when we realized we had taken the wrong branch.
The other really helpful map we encountered were marked snowmobile trails. Snowmobilers in rural parts of the state are very well organized, and have created a network of trails stretching from western NY to the Adirondacks in the northeast part of the state. Besides trail markers, they have erected trail maps at intersections showing trails at the county level, which were very helpful.