  In this work we revisit the description of dynamics based on the concepts of
metabasins and activation in mildly supercooled liquids via the analysis of the
dynamics of a paradigmatic glass former between its onset temperature $T_{o}$
and mode-coupling temperature $T_{c}$. First, we provide measures that
demonstrate that the onset of glassiness is indeed connected to the landscape,
and that metabasin waiting time distributions are so broad that the system can
remain stuck in a metabasin for times that exceed $\tau_\alpha$ by orders of
magnitude. We then reanalyze the transitions between metabasins, providing
several indications that the standard picture of activated dynamics in terms of
traps does not hold in this regime. Instead, we propose that here activation is
principally driven by entropic instead of energetic barriers. In particular, we
illustrate that activation is not controlled by the hopping of high energetic
barriers, and should more properly be interpreted as the entropic selection of
nearly barrierless but rare pathways connecting metabasins on the landscape.
