Hydration packs take all the weight off your bike and put it on your back. The amount of ride left to get home is inversely proportional to how hungry you are. Cheese is a meal in and of itself. If you got hungry enough, you'd eat a puppy. Easy rides can be hard.
Hard rides can be fun.
If the main trail looks like a dead end it probably is. Whenever someone says the trail has got to come out somewhere, it doesn't. When the ride leader points vaguely at some distant peak as your destination, check your water. When someone says the trail you're on is a deer-path, remind them that deer don't have wheels. Murphy's bike had Suntour components.