I don't know about the adrenaline, but certainly part of the attraction of hiking in the backcountry was acceptance of that risk. Not much different than skateboarding, if there was a perfectly safe way to do it, I would have done something else.
When I hiked alone, I never told anyone where I was going, and I wasn't going to ask someone to come rescue me in a helicopter from my poorly advised climb or snowshoe hike. If I got hurt, I was in trouble.
You took the gear you thought you needed to make it back alive, meaning backups for most of that gear, and you knew how to use them. A compass and map isn't a drop in replacement for a GPS, if you're going to use a compass you need to know how to use it. And so on.
But yeah, the risk was certainly part of the fun of it.
DNR.
