A river reaches somewhere partly because it accepts detours.

The river gets to the sea by going around everything it cannot go through. It gives up directness constantly and gives up direction never. What looks like inefficiency from above is actually the mechanism by which it arrives at all.

If your path has been full of detours, that is not evidence you are going the wrong way. Check only whether you are still generally descending toward the same place. A route with no detours in it usually means the terrain was flat, not that the traveller was better.