I have very little experience of flying in mountainous areas and, when I have, I have always kept above MSA. However, doing some float plane training in Scotland I could see how one could become trapped in the "wrong" blind valley in VMC but finding the best climb rate is insufficient to clear the end of the valley. One would already be using best climb speed which would leave no spare energy for fancy maneuvering. If there is no room for a 180, the only option is to find the best ground to land on. I've done this sort of thing frequently on FS in places like British Columbia. FS gives you the extra option of instantly changing aircraft to one with a better ROC.
