Phone Signal Drops on Appalachian Trail Sections Despite Full Bars

I just finished a week-long section hike on the Appalachian Trail with my Pixel 5, and I ran into a weird issue that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. Several times, my phone showed full signal bars (4G LTE) but I couldn't send texts or load any maps or messages. It was super frustrating because I rely on my phone for navigation and emergency contact. I tried toggling airplane mode and restarting the phone, but the problem persisted until I changed locations a bit. Oddly, in some spots with weaker bars, the data worked fine. I’m guessing it might be a network glitch or something about how the provider handles signal in certain valleys or ridges. Has anyone experienced signal showing as strong but actually being unusable in remote hiking areas? Is there a way to force the phone to reconnect to a different tower or network band manually? Any tips on apps or settings that can help diagnose or fix this on the trail would be awesome!